The Return of SHIELD
by Riley Holden
Summary: The personal and organizational chaos that resulted from the Hydra infiltration ran deep. It's hard to move forward when you're still dealing with past betrayals but Coulson's team needs to heal if they're going to return SHIELD to its' former glory. This story starts with an OC but will quickly move into the characters we know and love.
1. The Beginning

**The story starts with an original character (I *know* but if I wanted to examine the infiltration of SHIELD, I had to use someone not originally on the team) but it will quickly move into the characters we know and love. This is my first time writing fanfiction, so I hope you give it a chance! Everything is owned by Marvel except my original characters. I appreciate them letting me play with their characters for a while.**

The Beginning

Does anyone ever know when a major change is coming, one that will literally alter the course of your life? Are there clues or signals sent out by the universe that, to discerning eyes, will indicate that we should brace ourselves for the new shape of the future? Sometimes people later will recall that they "just had a feeling" but, of course, such recollections are suspect. It was Piaget who first introduced the idea that later knowledge is integrated into existing schemas in ways that sometimes make memories reflect something other than what actually happened. And if our memories are ever changing, then what does that mean for who we believe ourselves to be?

These were the thoughts occupying Agent Katerina Sevda as she began her second month of working at the FBI. While the job was new to her, the work itself was not. So, she amused herself by wondering if this was the start of something truly fresh or if it would end up being the same old thing. She certainly hoped not. The same old thing had practically killed her the last time. Of course, her boss waxed philosophic about how she was born to do this work, that Kat would make a difference in the world. Kat had heard it all before. She had once believed in something as idealistic as 'destiny' but now the word felt meaningless after the loss of life and the bits of darkness that seemed to swirl chaotically around her these days. As a result, she began her work at the FBI with just a hint of apathy, of wondering if she was correct in her assumptions.

Kat's work at the FBI was fairly routine, just as she knew it would be for a while. Although her superiors in the agency mentioned that they may occasionally need for her to do some criminal profiling, Kat's work mainly focused on psychological autopsies. Her task was to examine the circumstances of the death, retrospectively look at the person's life and figure out what took place in this incident and what circumstances led to them. She would then extrapolate whether the offender acted alone and if he – and they almost always were men – left behind more victims. If the offender was still alive (a relatively rare circumstance thus far since most tended to kill themselves when it looked like they could no longer continue their murder spree), it was Kat's job to try and determine where they were and how they could be caught. It was interesting work for the most part but, unlike in her previous position, the FBI didn't seem to be in urgent need of her conclusions. As a result, there was a lot of down time.

In the past, Kat welcomed the times when she could catch up on her reading, take a leisurely lunch or even work out in the middle of the day but now too much time left her restless and in a precarious position. The dark thoughts, the ones that almost destroyed her, were still too much in evidence for her to give them the opportunity to crowd back into her mind. She had to keep her mind active in order to keep them at bay, so Kat started thinking. And, if they had still been alive to issue a warning, her parents would have said that the prospect of Kat thinking was always a dangerous one. Dangerous for who, only time would tell. The last time she had started thinking, it had gotten her drummed out of SHIELD.

It all started with the Battle of New York. You would think that an alien attack would have caused the human race to band together in order to become stronger but such an idea was hopelessly naïve, as Kat knew only too well. That thought didn't take into account government bureaucracies, the illogical nature of fear, and the short-sightedness of the power-hungry who saw an opportunity. Thus, rather than uniting everyone, the Battle of New York had served mostly to keep people hopelessly divided. Of course, the usual petty criminal enterprises that tended to follow chaos were around but something was different this time.

Kat herself hadn't truly noticed the change immediately. She was too involved in her own life until it all came crashing down around her in what she called The Incident eight months after the Avengers saved the world. Kat's mind slipped over The Incident as quickly as she could. She didn't need to relive that horror but suffice it to say that she was a different person after that weekend in January when she was attacked by armed terrorists. After she healed physically from her gunshot wound, SHIELD welcomed her back with open arms.

Kat appreciated the way her coworkers had helped her during her initial week back on the job. They'd been solicitous about her health, made sure she wasn't doing too much, and frequently came by her office to lift her spirits. However, that lasted only a week as her coworkers got busier and expected that she would be fine. Kat wasn't too fazed by this as she knew that grief tends to get short shrift in the workplace. That was why Kat was especially grateful for the subtle nurturing she got from Raya Martinez, her coworker who had morphed into a good friend. It was Raya who thoughtfully provided Kat with the _Percy Jackson_ series to keep her occupied during her recovery.

The books served a dual purpose because they provided a carefree topic the two friends could discuss during their lunch hour. Or, at least, their conversations were usually carefree. Once Kat and Raya had a heated conversation about the appropriate way for Percy to kill a Hydra, given that the only way you thought the mythical creature could be killed – by chopping off one of its many heads – only served to make it stronger. Unfortunately, the two women had been in the cafeteria at the time and their intense debate attracted other colleagues to their table, many of whom had joined in. Finally, when the topic had been exhausted and everyone started drifting away, one of the younger agents at a neighboring table asked, "Hydra? Isn't that supposed to be SHIELD's worst enemy?" Both Kat and Raya had burst out laughing and walked away smiling.

Unfortunately, soon after this conversation, Raya was transferred to a remote location and Kat lost what she later realized was her touchstone to the living. Without Raya to nudge her out of her office, Kat's mental health took a nosedive. She became lonely, morose and irritable. Left to her own devices, Kat's thoughts turned dark. To keep herself from going crazy, she threw herself into her SHIELD work and barely even came up for food or sleep, not to mention fun. And that is when she started noticing the anomalies.

Because of her high ranking position in SHIELD's PsyOps division and her personal history, Kat was given permission to investigate the organization that was behind The Incident. Her work on psychological autopsies served her well with this but what she found was baffling. There were hardly any clues to the identity of the group that had barged into the compound. The group seemingly left nothing and no one behind. Even the money trail had gone cold. Despite spending her every waking moment on the investigation, she still had no answers to her questions. How had a relatively unheard of group gotten the intel they needed to stage such a high-level attack? What were their goals? Why had no one taken credit? She kept running into brick walls as the mystery refused to unravel. One fateful day (had she seen the signs before?), Kat decided to share her frustrations with her immediate superior, Agent Jim Smith, to see if he had any fresh ideas.

Kat had known Jim for close to a decade, almost from the time she graduated from the Academy. Jim was so incredibly smart and friendly that she felt really lucky to have the opportunity to work with him. He'd hired her into his division immediately following her graduation. Kat had no doubt that it was partly due to his mentorship that she'd risen so far in the organization. Jim never failed to offer her a helping hand whenever he could and often pushed her to develop new skills. In moments of self-doubt, she wondered just why it was that he was so generous with her.

"So Kat, it's kind of unusual for you to ask for a formal meeting. What's up?" Jim asked on a Friday afternoon when she sat down in the chair across from his desk.

She smiled briefly, somewhat shocked to realize that a smile was something that rarely graced her face these days. "It's just this damn organization!" Jim nodded understandingly. It was well known that Kat was interested in practically nothing else these days. "I can't find anything on it. Every time I think I get a lead, I run into a brick wall. It's like they're ghosts!" she said angrily. "I don't know what else to do." As she spoke, a peculiar expression passed over Jim's face.

Had this conversation occurred just a few weeks earlier, Kat would have missed it. For a full three months following The Incident, she had just been numb. She'd felt nothing and cared about little beyond finding those who were responsible for the nightmares from which she awoke screaming. However, after taking long walks in the parks that spring (the ones her colleagues and friends insisted she take) and spending hours in the company of Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff, Kat's emotions began to return.

Instead of being angry that other people were happy or just contentedly living their lives, she started pretending she could feel their emotions. She began trying to figure out what they were feeling and then eavesdrop on conversations to see if she was right. Given Kat's behavioral science background and her natural empathy, she found that she had gotten pretty good at reading people. Thus, while her days were spent in furious revenge for the dead, her nights were spent slowly rejoining the living. So when Jim's face took on an expression she wasn't expecting – was that _satisfaction_ on his face? – Kat was taken aback.

"Kat," Jim said gently. "Maybe you should consider letting this one go and start working on something new. No one could have looked harder or done a better job than you have but this group is clearly just too well hidden." He stopped to see if she was listening or was going to argue with him. When Kat remained silent, he continued. "I wouldn't worry though. Any group this well organized is one we will see again. I feel certain that you'll get your chance to meet whoever is responsible."

Kat just sat there feeling overwhelmed. All of a sudden, she remembered the many times that Jim had asked her to work on something else, all the projects that miraculously needed the assistance only she could provide. Surely, analyzing the personality profiles of Rising Tide hackers wasn't something that needed the skills of a top level PsyOps agent! It was never blatant but, now that she was looking for it, she could clearly detect a pattern of Jim steering her away from this investigation. It was on the tip of Kat's tongue to ask why he wanted her to fail but then she thought better of it because another thing that Kat learned during her time of grief was patience.


	2. Hydra Revealed

Kat went home early that night, shortly after she'd ended her conversation with Jim by assuring him that she would consider his suggestion. Once again, she caught a micro-expression she didn't believe he meant to show. While his countenance quickly transformed back into his usual grandfatherly expression of concern, Kat was certain she had caught a look of relief on his face. What on earth could this mean, she wondered. Did Jim know something she didn't about The Incident, something he was worried would hurt her if she found out? Did he think she was wasting resources by spending so much time on the investigation? Why would Jim want to keep her from uncovering the terrorist organization that had so deeply wounded SHIELD (and Kat) that awful weekend?

It was still too early for Kat to return back to her little apartment (the time she spent at her place often brought back too many memories, ones she no longer wanted to drown in), so she ended up going to the Vietnam Wall Memorial. Although Kat had not known personally any of the names on the Wall, she always felt its strength and sadness. She had spent hours watching people who could only be veterans or family members stare at the thousands of names (or only the one) because she could tell that they too were feeling the same deep sense of desolation that she was.

This evening though, the Wall was relatively empty and instead of focusing on the people still alive, she concentrated on the dead. Although it was a weird thing to feel, Kat got the distinct feeling that they were trying to tell her something. Kat knew from experience that trying to search for a nagging feeling was an exercise in futility, so instead she let her mind wander. What had SHIELD done during the Vietnam War? How had her organization contributed to the intelligence and/or the defense of the military? Were any of the names on the Wall actually SHIELD agents, hiding their true allegiance in obscurity even after their final sacrifice?

From there, the thought of a final sacrifice led her thoughts to Steve Rogers (whom she had helped professionally when he first was rescued and now had become a friend), and how he had been willing to die to take down Hydra. Although his courageous acts had decimated the Red Skull back then, Kat never believed that Hydra itself was gone. Although he never said as much, she suspected that Steve didn't believe it either; after all, he knew these people first-hand and how devious they could be.

Defeating the leaders of groups like the Nazis (and Hydra) didn't mean that the ideas behind them were gone. People who believe in violence as the only means to an end would always be around. Organizations like that never truly go away; they just go underground. She remembered her heated debate with Raya about how to kill a creature that wouldn't die just because you cut off one of its heads. Like Percy Jackson did in the book, someone might think for a moment that they'd succeeded in killing the beast only to be surprised when it later came back stronger than ever. Kat continued to amuse herself for a minute wondering how Hydra could have kept going after their unceremonious defeat after World War II.

Suddenly, Kat felt that rush of adrenaline that you get when you can see the solution to a puzzle but have yet to actually solve it. It's the feeling that comes over you when you know that you will solve the Rubik's Cube in several turns or have only a few pieces left in a jigsaw or crossword. Thoughts quickly flashed together in her brain: Steve battling the Red Skull and cutting off one of its heads; the unreasonably angry looks on some of the agents' faces as they argued about ways to kill a Hydra; a group that had intel it shouldn't and didn't leave a trace when it hurt SHIELD; Jim's guidance away from discovering information about that group; the training that had to have been a part of the soldiers who hurt her during The Incident. As her thoughts ground to a halt, Kat leapt to her feet and understood what the dead had been trying to tell her. There was a big reason why SHIELD's Walls of Valor kept adding more names than they should be these days: Hydra was still alive and well and operating from within SHIELD itself.

Afterwards, Kat was hard put to explain her exact thought processes but what happened was actually simple. All the thoughts (signs?) that had been rattling around in her brain for months crystallized when she started thinking about what she would do if she wanted to rebuild an organization in secret. Once she saw the big picture, that Hydra was still active, then the rest of the puzzle was easy to piece together. The first step would be in admitting that you are defeated for the moment. In this acceptance was the refusal to try grand schemes right away but instead focus on the success in the future. In other words, they would be playing the long game.

The second step would be to get spies – at this stage they would have to be True Believers – to infiltrate groups that had important information you needed to acquire. For Hydra, what organization would be better than SHIELD? All you needed were people willing to hide their true motives in order to gain information and access and then find a way for them to share this information with their comrades. If what Kat had read in the International Spy Museum (a place she visited many times) was to be believed, this would not even be too difficult, at least at first. True Believers tend to be persistent and tight-lipped; it's only when you start recruiting those who are in it for pettier motives (like greed or glory) that things get tricky.

Anyone watching Kat when she was at the Wall would have seen a variety of expressions pass over her face in the minute prior to when she leapt to her feet; it happened that fast. But she was well-prepared for it. Yet another thing she learned after The Incident was that, like the Queen in _Alice in Wonderland_, she needed to get used to "believing as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Once that was accomplished, the mind could take you anywhere. That was why once Kat made that first intuitive leap, the rest just fell into place.

Could Jim, her dear friend and mentor, actually be Hydra? No, that was impossible! She had known Jim for years but, the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that he was. What if he didn't want her to discover the identity of the terrorist organization that forever changed her life because it too was Hydra? What if the reason why she couldn't figure out how they had gotten their intelligence was because Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD and their goal with that particular operation was to eliminate certain SHIELD assets? If so, then Kat hadn't been killed only because she wasn't a threat. In fact, what if they believed that she could possibly be a recruit? Was that why Jim had always been so helpful? Was he her handler? Was he grooming her for Hydra?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once said, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." The more Kat pondered the situation, the more she realized that much of Jim's behavior could be explained if he was secretly working with Hydra. She thought of the times in which Jim had slyly expressed what she considered at the time to be odd viewpoints, like his support for the elimination of people who could potentially be dangerous to the state. When challenged on these viewpoints, somehow he'd explained them away with reasonable sounding justifications. After all, it was Jim, the man who was so caring towards his family, friends and colleagues.

Whenever Kat voiced doubts about the morality of particular operations or investigations, it was Jim who, in his grandfatherly way, had chided her to respect the military and their organizational goals. Through the lens of her Hydra theory, Kat now realized that he had been communicating fascist goals for years yet she hadn't seen them for what they were. In fact, she'd recently begun to agree with him on a few things, especially in the months following The Incident. Kat felt a sliver of fear run through her as she wondered just how long it would have taken before she would have been compromised by her anger, grief and fear. Was this how they got new recruits? Did they just find damaged people and convince them that they could make a difference or make their life better if they did what they asked?

Was Raya also Hydra? Had she too been assigned to befriend Kat and work with Jim to lead her down the Hydra path? Or had Raya been a true friend, one who was kind and cared about Kat, but was transferred because she was getting in the way of Kat's recruitment? Kat shook her head as she realized what such an infiltration would do to friendships, loyalties and the trust everyone, or at least some people, thought they shared with other SHIELD operatives and coworkers. This would shake the very foundation of SHIELD!

Kat slowly walked away from the Wall, her feet made heavy by the thoughts in her head and the sadness in her heart. Jim was a respected operative within SHIELD. He had a long history with the organization and was trusted by people at the highest levels. Moreover, for The Incident to have succeeded, intel would have been gathered by people who had access to highly classified documents. It was not the sort of operation accomplished by foot soldiers. How high did the infiltration go? If her hypotheses were correct, SHIELD was in major trouble. So, the main question now was: what could she do?

Kat's steps led her to the Albert Einstein Memorial. She looked sadly at the peaceful looking scientist, the man who did his best to lead humanity in the right direction. Like Einstein, Kat too was a scientist (albeit of a different type), so she felt a special kinship with him. Perhaps that is why her body led her here even when her mind didn't realize it had a direction. Although she knew it was silly, Kat sat down in the statue's huge lap, feeling comforted that there were people in the world who tried to do the right thing even if they weren't always successful. It was there, in that snug corner of the her world, that Kat's thoughts once again led her to Steve Rogers, a man who had given up everything, even his life, to make the world a better place. She would talk to him but only after she gathered more information.


	3. Chapter 3

**Next chapter: Captain America!**

Chapter 3: The Rising Tide Helps Out

Kat took the weekend to formulate a workable plan. If she was going to depend on her scientific training, then her first step had to be testing her Hydra hypothesis. That was going to be tricky. Jim already was keeping an eye on her and if he ever believed she was a threat, she would be eliminated and Kat was beyond that stage of the grief process when she would have welcomed death. So, if she wanted to stay alive and help SHIELD, she needed to be careful.

Kat knew she needed untraceable computer access, so she immediately called a source she had obtained in an investigation not long ago. SHIELD had been scrutinizing a hacktivist organization called the Rising Tide for some time now. During one recent case involving the group, Kat made a strategic decision, one she didn't tell anyone about lest they call into question her commitment and loyalty. In fact, Kat herself was hard-pressed to explain why exactly she had made that decision. All she could say was that it felt right at the time. Now, when that decision was maybe going to pay off, she knew it had been the right one.

During the case, Kat uncovered an exceptional Rising Tide member, one who had any number of computer skills. Rather than arresting Cassady or even alerting SHIELD to her existence, Kat explained to the hacker the dangerous position she was in and why the Rising Tide was on SHIELD's radar. Kat let her go free only after obtaining her contact information and requesting that she assist in future investigations as needed. Cassady had laughed and, much to Kat's delight and consternation, said she would only help if she felt the case warranted it. Kat had yet to call on her but knew that now was the time. Much to her relief, Cassady agreed to furnish her with an untraceable laptop with a disguised signal and firewall so strong that Kat should be safe even when hacking into SHIELD databases.

On Monday morning, Kat had another sit-down with Jim. "I thought about what you said and I think you are right; it's time for me to move on. But in the interests of being thorough, I thought I would check the SHIELD databases for any other operations with fingerprints similar to this one. I don't expect to find anything, so once I do that, I'm done."

Jim once again had a quick satisfied expression that instantly transformed into his caring face. Watching him, Kat internally shook her head and wondered how she'd missed Jim's obvious tells all these years. "I think that's a great idea, Kat. Look, I'm sorry I never mentioned anything earlier, but I was really worried about you after what happened in January. I cannot tell you how glad I am that you seem to be getting better and want to move on from such a horrible experience." Hearing those words of compassion, Kat experienced a feeling of doubt. What if she was wrong about Jim?

"Well," she told herself, "that's why you're testing the theory." Einstein would approve. She quickly thanked Jim and left his office to put in motion the rest of her plan.

Over the course of the next two weeks, Kat logged any number of hours searching through archived cases. She started by looking into assaults on SHIELD, ones that were similar to her own experience, in which the group responsible was unknown or where assault ended in damage to SHIELD's internal functioning. After that data was exhausted, Kat moved on to a deeper investigation. Knowing that she most likely was watched, she didn't spend a significant amount of time on any one case but instead, surreptitiously hand wrote the names of the SHIELD agents – both dead and alive – involved in operations that went wrong. The names of the operations themselves were carefully noted as well.

Kat also took the time to casually watch the agent in her division with the worst memory. When he went to the bathroom one afternoon, she quickly went through his drawers in order to find his password. Groaning softly at his carelessness, Kat copied down his password (did people seriously still use their name and birthday?) for use in getting into SHIELD databases from Cassady's laptop. If she wasn't on a clandestine mission, she would have had a talk with him about his lax security protocols.

The following week, Kat asked Jim for her next assignment so everything at work would go as planned. However, she contracted a bad case of the flu that left her so ill that she was forced to stay at home in bed recovering for close to a week. Jim told her it was due to overwork and that she should take all the time she needed to heal. At first, that made Kat feel so guilty that she could barely stand it. But, as the week wore on and she worked almost round the clock on Cassady's computer, checking and double checking flawed operations, her guilt quickly faded. What she found made her sick to her stomach.

Kat discovered a large number of operations that significantly hurt SHIELD. Many of the operations were subtle and, at least superficially did not look as though the damage was anything but minimal. However, soon a pattern began to emerge and Kat started being able to tell when an operation went wrong due to random human error or purposeful mistakes. Most of the agents involved in the missions did not overlap but, once she traced the level of access such an assault would require, put it together with people who had access and then matched them with those involved with the operations (Supervising Officers were often a strong link), she realized that they were more connected than they would have been by chance.

Not all the operations involved death or even violence. In fact, those cases were fairly rare which made her think that keeping the anonymity of Hydra intact was, at this point, more important than gaining intel or hurting SHIELD's overall functioning. Even so, the outcomes of the flawed operations mounted up. Kat detected a lot of missing deadly artifacts, criminals who somehow slipped through SHIELD's grasp and then disappeared, and agents acting in slightly uncharacteristic ways. There were those who seemed like cowboys (she figured those were the most dangerous because they tended to be charismatic people with sizable followings) while others were almost too perfect. Kat paid special attention to the loners, agents who seemed to interact well with others but never found a group of friends. She also took note of agents whose estimation of their own abilities seemed to outweigh their actual performance evaluations. As Kat knew only too well from her work, arrogance without justification and with a dash of entitlement frequently is dangerous.

Kat returned to work on a Friday. Her coworkers commented that she looked like she could have used a whole week off instead of a few days. Kat agreed with their assessment and went home early to sleep for a few hours. With all of her newly acquired information, she decided it was time to talk with Steve.


	4. Captain America

**At last, we have a familiar face. Hello, beautiful!**

Chapter 4: Captain America

Steve Rogers smiled when he saw that it was Katerina Sevda at his door. Over the past few months, he and Natasha had been helping her get on with her life despite the trauma caused by The Incident. Over the course of their lives, they had each had their own 'incidents,' whether that meant Budapest and hospital fires or being on the front lines of the most brutal world war. Perhaps the experiences were different, but Steve knew it meant they understood grief and darkness in ways most people do not. They couldn't be called traditional friends, but there was an unspoken understanding there that comforted him. Besides, Steve wasn't in such denial that he couldn't admit to himself the ego boost that came with hanging out with the Black Widow and Kat.

With her red hair, immense courage and incredible physicality, the Black Widow was an amazing woman and Steve wasn't immune to her charms. Kat also was terrific and made a great physical contrast to Natasha when the three of them went out. She had black hair, bright blue eyes and, despite her being fit, Kat was more likely to try cleverness to get out of a tight situation; athleticism really wasn't her thing. Both women shared a sharp intellect and a dry wit, two characteristics that made them a lot of fun. Of course, Kat hadn't been at her most witty lately but Steve noticed that was starting to come out of her long hibernation. He could relate.

"Hey Kat, how are you?" Steve said when he opened his apartment door. "Do you want to come in?" he asked after a moment when she just stood in the doorway.

Kat simply shook her head. Between waking up from her long nap only a short while ago and the anticipation of telling Steve, she was way too keyed up to want to sit down and drink coffee or something. Besides, there was no telling what kind of tabs SHIELD and/or Hydra kept on Captain America. Kat had never thought about it before but it made sense that Steve would be under surveillance. "Ummm….not right now. Do you think we could take a walk instead?" she asked.

Most people who met Captain America found him too good to be true. Yes, he was handsome and strong but what made him great was his firm belief in goodness and morality. He stood for the positive values we espoused as a society and did not waver in those beliefs. That was what made him such a great advertisement for the nation. However, since he'd returned from the dead, there had been some who snickered behind his back. Sure, there was the cheesiness of the costume but it was about more than that.

Back when Steve Rogers became Captain America, so-called traditional values held sway. Patriotism, loyalty, and a rigid certainty about what was good and what was bad were the beliefs of the time. Put simply, right was right and wrong was wrong. However, times had changed and the world had gotten gray. The broad (and, to be honest, blunt) emotions that made Captain America such a hero back in World War II were no longer as revered as they once had been. Now people understood that sensitivity was what the world needed but Captain America's image was anything but diplomatic. Thus, people who didn't know Steve thought that he was truly a man out of time, that he could not possibly be in touch with the subtle gradations of emotion or grasp the blurring of morality. Those people were wrong.

What those people never knew or had forgotten was that Steve wasn't born Captain America; he was made into him. When he was growing up, Steve suffered the slings and arrows of a skinny, weak boy back when such characteristics were truly abhorred versus merely tolerated like they are now. Moreover, Steve spent his pre-Captain America life ignored by women, or when they did deign to even notice him, in the Friend Zone, so his body back then was not in synchronicity with his vision of himself. In other words, Steve suffered a great deal and, once he became Captain America, it didn't get a lot better.

At first he was used as a show-piece. He was believed to be an airhead who looked good in a suit, someone who was only good for doing what he was told. Then, when Steve decided he was done with that, he entered combat and experienced the horror and tragedy that inevitably accompanies such a dismal adventure. He lost his best friend, Bucky, along the way. Steve didn't even get to spend time with Peggy, the love of his life, before he made the courageous decision to save humanity by burying the Tesseract (and himself) in ice. When Captain America was revived, everything had changed but Steve had not. Consequently, Steve had to start over and relearn almost everything. Yet despite all he had done and all he had suffered, his life was still not his own.

Kat knew all this. She realized that despite his calm and broad exterior (she and Nat often made fun of his "Cap" way of talking), Steve was a tortured soul. In short, he was a kindred spirit, one who could immediately pick up on her moods and was not shy about inquiring about them. More than most, Steve wanted to help, so Kat knew she had to be careful. Steve had such strong feelings about Hydra and she did not want him to go on an impulsive witch hunt that could backfire on them both. After all, she still didn't know the depth of the infiltration and who they could trust or even if she was correct in her assumptions.

That was why, when she could tell that he immediately picked up on her mood, Kat felt a thrill of fear. Was she doing the right thing by dragging him into this? Was this something he could even handle right now? Kat felt just as protective of Steve as he did of her. She could not let him get hurt.

"I don't know if I feel up to it. Why don't you come in for a while?" Steve said casually. Kat was about to demure and turn to go when Steve grabbed her hand and practically yanked her inside. He gave her an intense look and asked, "Can I get you something to drink?"

Kat was completely bewildered but said, "Sure. What do you have?"

Steve gave her a list of possible liquids while he clinked around in the kitchen. Kat gave him an answer but figured it didn't truly matter because it was clear that Steve was only making noise. He slammed the refrigerator shut, took her arm, held a finger to his lips and gestured to the window. Looking at the fire escape, Kat almost laughed when she realized his intentions but only nodded and let Steve lead the way. Maybe this wasn't a mistake after all.

Once they reached the sidewalk, they continued on in silence as Kat let Steve lead her wherever he wanted to go. Once again she let patience be her guide as she decided to let him tell her about the deception when he was ready. The two of them walked for quite a ways, only stopping once they reached a grubby diner that was completely devoid of customers. Steve gestured Kat to take the booth at the far end of the diner and then took the side facing the door. That way, if anyone entered, he would know it.

"OK," he started. "What's going on?"

Kat couldn't help it. She started to laugh; she'd just been hijacked by Captain America and now _he_ was asking _her_ for answers. "Umm….I think I'm the one who should be asking you that question! What's with all the secrecy?"

Steve smiled and relaxed a bit but kept his watch on the front door. "Weird things have been happening lately and it occurred to me that maybe I'm being watched. You clearly have something serious to discuss, so I thought it best to go someplace we have less chance of being overheard."

Kat stopped laughing and also relaxed a bit. Maybe this would be easier than she thought. She considered where to start but then realized that she probably was going to spill everything, so she might as well just do it. "Well, I don't know anything for sure but…" and launched into her story.

Steve was a good listener. Although he eyes did widen when she first said the word Hydra, he didn't interrupt her recitation to make comments or even ask questions; he just nodded during appropriate moments. Kat was incredibly relieved. Not only did he seem to believe her but he also wasn't going to go off and do something stupid. "So, what do you think? What should I do from here?" Kat finished.

Steve sat there a moment and thought hard. His first inclination was to flat out disbelieve what she was saying. He thought he was done with Hydra! However, this was no longer the World War II era Steve; he was now post-Battle of New York Steve. He had seen first-hand how organizations, even ones as well-intentioned as SHIELD, could put power and weapons to bad use. And although he badly wanted to ignore Tony Stark, Steve had to admit that the guy had a point about secrets and lies. But Hydra? Was it even possible?

Steve realized that he was out of his depth with this sort of thing but also recognized the gravity of the situation. Kat came to him hoping that he could help her. She either was right (and he did acknowledge that his missions were increasingly strange, and people he thought he could trust suddenly were questionable) which meant she was in danger or she was wrong and her mental condition was deteriorating. Either the fate of SHIELD was at risk or Kat was. What on earth could he do? Suddenly the answer, or at least some relief, came to him, "We need to call Natasha."


	5. The Black Widow

**Where one Avenger goes, another will soon follow. **

Chapter 5: The Black Widow

With both Steve and Kat possibly under surveillance, it was agreed that they would use the diner's phone to call the Black Widow. They didn't know if Nat's phone was being tapped but it was a risk they had to take.

Of course she didn't answer but Kat knew that she checked messages often, so she plowed ahead with the script she and Steve had devised. "Hey Nat! It's Kat. Steve and I decided that we wanted a night out on the town and were wondering if you wanted to join us for a few drinks or maybe something to eat. " Kat gave the name of the diner and the address and hung up. She and Steve then sat down to wait.

"Did you know Nat before the Battle of New York?" Steve asked Kat.

Kat looked surprised but answered, "Sure. I knew both Nat and Clint before all that happened. You forget that I am a SHIELD baby; I know practically everyone!" Kat smiled briefly as she thought about all the SHIELD legends she'd met and befriended through the years. Her smile faded as she started wondering how many of them were Hydra.

"What about Banner and Stark? Did you know them?"

"No, not back then. Bruce was always so elusive, convinced that SHIELD would shut him away if he was caught." Kat sighed. "I understand and don't really blame him for staying away but he would be absolutely fascinating to work with! I mean, we all talk about being rage monsters at times and he really is one!" She smiled. "And of course you recall that Tony didn't really care much for SHIELD either. He's too much his own man and way too suspicious of a group like us. But I would have loved to work with him too. Just imagine: Bruce is bipolar and Tony is a narcissist, so together they're a psychologist's dream…or nightmare, depending on how you look at it!"

The two of them laughed together and then grew silent for a moment. "So you knew Agent Coulson too?" Steve persisted.

"Yes," Kat whispered, looking down at her lap. Phil. The loss of him still cut pretty deep. He was such a treasure to Kat. She'd known him practically all of her life as he had been good friends with her parents. Phil had always made time to talk with the young Kat and his gentleness combined with his excitement about old things, new toys and heroes like Captain America forged a strong connection with her. He had been a big part of the reason she'd wanted to work for SHIELD.

Of course, as she got older, Kat teased Phil mercilessly about his fanboy obsessions but she always respected his dedication and enthusiasm for his job. In the days following The Incident, Kat would have done anything to have been able to talk with Phil, hear his perspective and accept his calm comfort. The loss of Phil was never more acute than during that period of time. Combined with the damage she sustained during that weekend, the loss of Phil had made it almost impossible to keep going. Yet now the memory of Phil Coulson had moved into a stage of half pain, half comfort; he was still there for Kat in her memories. If he was still alive, she would be absolutely certain he was not Hydra.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up painful memories," Steve said after a moment when it became apparent that Kat wasn't going to say more. "He seemed like a good guy. I wish I'd known him better."

Kat shook her head. She didn't want to forget Phil, especially now when she knew she would need thoughts of SHIELD agents like him to get her through this. "I wish you'd known him like I did. Phil was a great guy. You would have liked him even though he would have annoyed you by going on and on about how great you are. But maybe once he got to know the real you, that would have stopped," she teased.

"Most definitely," Steve agreed. "And Thor?" he asked with a slight smile on his face.

"Nope, I never did get to know him." Kat also smiled slightly. "But I would have loved to work with him too. He's so dreamy."

Steve laughed. "So what did you know about Nat?"

"Oh," said a casual voice from behind Steve, "just that she had a tough life from a tender age and was an incredibly successful assassin before she was recruited by Hawkeye to join SHIELD and become one of the good guys." Natasha laughed at Steve's jump that caused him to hit his knees on the table. "Kat saw me but you were too interested in getting my backstory" she said mischievously as she slid in on Steve's side of the booth.

Steve tried to cover his embarrassment, especially because Nat had just caught him being nosey about her history. It wasn't that he was romantically interested in her – he knew she was with Clint – but she was just such a mystery. Nat rarely got surprised or let things get to her, so Steve often felt at a loss when she was around and he didn't like that. It would have been nice to have some way to figure her out, if only to know what to do to be a better friend. Nat was so great, she deserved that.

Kat shook her head at the Black Widow's dramatic entrance. She didn't know what to make of Nat either sometimes but she suspected that much of her theatrics were a way to keep people off-balance enough to let her be in control. Kat didn't believe Nat was a control freak but that she used being an enigma more as a protective mechanism, born of emotional pain and her inability to be in charge of her own destiny. Kat just wished that Nat would trust them enough to let them in, to realize that she didn't always have to be on her guard. Unfortunately, the news they brought wasn't going to help.

"So, what's up?" Nat asked looking at Kat. "Your message was cryptic enough to make me suspect that either evil is afoot or Stark is once again demanding that the Avengers go on a scavenger hunt."

Despite the seriousness of their situation, Kat laughed. She just got a mental image of Thor trying desperately to find a car with a bumper sticker stating, "Visualize whirled peas!" She quickly sobered and launched into story, once again starting with, "Well, I don't know anything for sure but…"

Like Steve had been before, Nat remained silent throughout Kat's presentation of her thoughts. She also kept quiet when Steve joined in telling about some of the strange things that had been happening to him lately. However, despite their attempt at stealth (well, Nat's effort more than Steve's), Kat caught the significant look that passed between them. Her heart sank a little as she realized that they didn't believe her. She decided to save them the effort.

"So you don't believe me," she said resignedly.

"Kat, it's not that we don't believe you, it's just that…" Steve started.

"…you may be emotionally compromised right now," Nat finished. "It hasn't been that long since you were hurt and now you're looking at things differently. You're angry and exhausted and it's possible that you're not thinking as clearly as you would otherwise. Besides, organizations go through periods of transition. SHIELD just went through a big one with the Battle of New York. They're still picking up the pieces of that, figuratively and literally! Everybody is re-evaluating things, so maybe that's what you're seeing."

Kat leaned back in her booth and closed her eyes. She could understand their reluctance (and denial) but she still believed that her hypothesis was correct; too many things didn't add up. She had hoped that Steve and Nat would see things her way but perhaps that was too much to ask of them. But she couldn't just let it go.

"OK. Maybe you're right; maybe I'm not seeing things correctly. But say for a minute that _I'm_ right. What should I do about it?"

Both Kat and Steve looked at Nat who, in turn, looked back at both of them. "You have the most experience with deception and lies," he explained with a shrug.

Nat nodded and sighed. "Ok, don't tell anyone else about this for now. If you're right, this information needs to be contained. If you're wrong, the fewer people who know about it, the better. If you insist on going forward with your idea, then I recommend compiling your data into a report and taking it to Maria Hill. But Kat, I really think you should just sit on this. Give it a few months. Maybe you'll see things differently then."

Kat nodded, already hating the idea of going to Maria Hill but knowing that Nat was right. What else could she do?

Steve looked unhappy. He knew Kat well enough to know that she would not heed Nat's advice and give up but he wanted to be supportive. Finally, he sighed into the silence, leaned forward to take Kat's hand and said, "I wish we could help you more, Kat. I hope you know that I always have your back."

"I know, Cap," Kat said teasingly. "OK. It will take me a few weeks to work up a report and get on Maria's calendar. I'll let you know how it goes."


	6. Maria Hill

**I always wondered why no one else saw Garrett for who he truly was. It could be that they did but no one believed them.**

Chapter 6: Maria Hill

It didn't go well. Given who Kat was and her high standing in SHIELD, it took only two weeks to set up a meeting with Maria Hill, Nick Fury's second in command. During the time in which she had to wait, Kat worked furiously, both on this project and others (both to avoid suspicion and to keep herself sane). She stayed in the office past usual business hours, ate lunch at her desk, and rarely participated in social outings or even in the office gossip. Her colleagues noticed.

Jim called Kat into his office a week after her meeting with Steve and Nat to express his concern. "Kat, people are worried about you and that includes me. We thought you were getting better, returning more to who you were before January, but now it's like you've regressed. You rarely smile or laugh, you've lost weight, and you look like hell," Jim said bluntly.

Kat sighed, something she realized she was doing a lot of lately. She felt the weight of her imposed silence and of the gravity of the task she had ahead of her. She was just so tired! She decided to be as honest as she could be with Jim, someone who not long ago she had considered a good friend. "I'm not sleeping much," she admitted. "When I do, I have nightmares. It's hard for me to be home these days because I think too much."

Jim nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe you shouldn't work so hard. Try taking on fewer projects or ask for help from your colleagues. They miss you! We want to help, Kat. You don't have to be alone. We're all in this for the greater good."

Kat internally straightened at Jim's phrasing and felt again the loneliness of her task. She no longer knew who she could trust, so she really could trust no one. "Give me a week to get it together, Jim. If that doesn't work, I'll figure something else out." Jim nodded sadly and let her go.

Kat tried to pace herself more over the next few days. She took a lunch hour, came and went at more normal hours but still kept her distance. It was just too hard to do anything else. Her report for Hill was finished, so she used her free time to walk the parks and visit the nearby Walls of Valor. But despite her best efforts, Kat was a wreck by the time she sat down in Maria Hill's office and Maria noticed.

Kat knew a bit of Maria's history and, of course, had met her many times throughout the years. While Maria had her own challenging backstory, you would never know based on her rigid demeanor. Kat had always believed that, like the Black Widow, Maria's minimal expressiveness was her way of controlling the strong emotions she was bound to have. She had seen Maria smile and even laugh a few times, so she knew there was some humanity within her and Kat sometimes amused herself by trying to access it. Still, given Maria's heavy-handed way of interacting, she never felt comfortable with the Deputy Director yet she knew she was fair and cared deeply about SHIELD. Like her or not, she was the right person to tell about Kat's Hydra theory.

Like she had with Steve and Natasha, Kat launched into her Hydra hypothesis, bringing out her report that was illustrated with timelines, pie charts and even organizational "families" of the agents involved. Toward the end of the report, Kat had listed agents she suspected of being Hydra. She knew this was a significant risk, because it was purely speculation on her part and the list contained many valued, high level operatives, but she believed it was important to at least plant a seed in Maria's mind about who could be trusted. It turned out to be her undoing.

Kat had to give Maria credit for patiently listening to her spiel and for at least appearing to read her report with interest. However, when she saw some of the names listed in the back, Kat could tell that she struggled to control herself. "You have Melinda May and Grant Ward on this list?" Maria said in a somewhat higher and more forceful tone than before.

"Yes. I realize that the list may be inaccurate but I put down everyone I thought was a potential based on the intel I have right now," Kat answered calmly.

"I vetted Agent Ward myself! And Agent May….hell Kat, she's the fucking Cavalry!" Maria said even more loudly.

"I took that into consideration but, if Agent May was a sleeper agent, she would take great care to maintain her position. And you have to admit that, as a result of Bahrain, she gained a whole lot of trust from SHIELD. She's almost untouchable and she can have her pick of assignments. Plus, she meets the criteria of a loner without many friends. So does Agent Ward. Although, to be honest, the main reason Agent Ward caught my interest was because of his close connection with Agent Garrett."

Maria shook her head in disbelief and her eyes widened. "John Garrett?" she said with her voice rising another octave.

Kat nodded again, knowing she was skating on exceedingly thin ice. May and Ward were loners, agents few knew well and whose defense would rest primarily on their records. Garrett was another story. He was well-liked and had built a certain kind of mythos around himself. "Yes. Garrett has a high level of access, something that is needed with the majority of the operations listed in my report. He is good with people and has a strong level of influence with many of the younger agents, Agents Ward and Triplett included although given Agent Triplett's background, he isn't a serious candidate. Garrett frequently goes off-book on assignments, doesn't seem to have much compassion for others, displays many narcissistic traits and goes off the grid more often than most during his down times. His name kept coming up in my research and he has the personality profile for a traitor. If I were a betting person, my money would be on him."

Maria looked like she had just been slapped. "John Garrett is one of our best agents!"

Kat was getting a bit weary of what she saw as Maria's obliviousness. "Yes, but anyone who needs the kind of access it would take to infiltrate SHIELD would have to gain people's trust! They wouldn't send the screw-ups because no one would trust them with major assignments or sensitive information. Agent Hill, what I am talking about is a major threat to SHIELD, something that has our agents dying when they shouldn't be!"

Afterward, Kat reflected that she could see the exact moment when she lost Maria's trust, when she reacted just like Steve and Natasha but with none of the benefits of friendship. She could almost see her thought processes at work. When Kat said her sentence about agents dying, Maria's facial expression changed, almost as if she were saying, "_Ahhh…..Kat is still damaged by and obsessed with what happened to her, so much so that she is seeing conspiracies where there are none._" And then, when Maria looked up and raked her eyes up and down Kat's appearance, Kat could see her thinking, "_She's exhausted, possibly cognitively impaired. It is impossible that anyone could infiltrate SHIELD to that degree, much less Hydra, our enemy!_" And when Maria's posture relaxed a bit and she sighed, Kat felt a thrill of fear and realized that her time with SHIELD was over.


	7. Coming Back Into Bloom

**This is a short one but it is setting up where the story needs to go.**

Chapter 7: Coming Back Into Bloom

Maria at least let Kat go out with a semblance of dignity. She was allowed to tell everyone that she was taking a medical leave, the permanency of which depended on how well her recovery progressed. But Kat knew that she would never be allowed back (Maria even refused to keep Kat's report, going so far as to say that she didn't want such an incendiary document around), at least not while Maria was in charge. And at this point, Kat didn't know if she even wanted to return. SHIELD was severely damaged and, sooner or later (Kat guessed sooner), it was going to be hurt even worse.

Steve and Nat were shocked by the turn of events but tried their best to offer her support. Seeing her exhausted state, they encouraged her to take a few months off, forget about SHIELD, and heal herself. So that is what she did. Kat traveled to new places, avoided the news as much as possible, participated in some grief therapy under an alias, and read books she'd been meaning to get to for ages. She worked out, learned how to cook, danced, sang, dated and even had a few brief relationships. In general, Kat used the time to try and figure out who she was and who she wanted to be. By the time she received a call three months later requesting that she join the FBI, she felt ready to take on a new assignment.


	8. The Downfall of SHIELD

**This is also a short chapter. When I went back and looked at Marvel's timeline, I was very surprised to see how quickly all the events in Winter Soldier and the last episodes in Agents of SHIELD actually occurred. It kind of boggles the mind.**

Chapter 8: The Downfall of SHIELD

Kat found that working for the FBI was a lot different than working for SHIELD. Since the FBI dealt solely with human beings, the cases ended up being a lot less serious than she was used to. As a result, the work was less urgent, protocol wasn't as rigid and tension was fairly low. This was a nice change and Kat soaked up the atmosphere. She used her down time to gather as much data as she could and to endear herself to her superiors. Kat knew that she would need their trust sooner or later. All intel suggested sooner so, once again, she was left to wait.

In February, Kat noticed that things were starting to heat up. There was a lot of talk about a terrorist called The Clairvoyant who was messing things up for several SHIELD operations, particularly those that had anything to do with high-powered weapons or the Centipede project. Then, later in the month, Trevor Slattery – the actor who posed as the Mandarin to hide Extremis mistakes – escaped from prison. In March, things got even weirder. A top-secret storage facility named The Guest House was blown up and an Asgardian called Lorelei spent two days laying waste to things in Nevada. Kat technically wasn't supposed to know about any of these things but some upgrades to Cassady's computer proved very helpful. As a result, she could tell that the shit was about the hit the fan.

It hit with a vengeance in April. As she was no longer a member of SHIELD, with her heart in her throat, Kat could only watch the events unfold on her computer. She ached when SHIELD Director Nick Fury was pronounced dead. She physically threw up when dear, sweet Steve was declared a fugitive and he and Nat went on the run together. The very next day, Kat sat at her desk in helpless terror as Steve and Nat fought the Winter Soldier ("Who was that guy and where did he come from?" she wondered), were arrested and then seemed to disappear.

Feeling sick, Kat took the next day off of work but was called into a meeting with her boss. She was still in that meeting (which ended up going on for hours) when all of SHIELD and Hydra secrets were leaked to the public, the Helicarriers were destroyed, the Triskelion was reduced to rubble, and the Cube and the SHIELD Academy were attacked by Hydra operatives. If that wasn't enough, later in the evening they heard that John Garrett was exposed as the Clairvoyant. Kat couldn't help but feel satisfaction at hearing that news. She had been right. She looked forward to her next meeting with Maria Hill, that is, if she survived.

The very next day, the government declared SHIELD to be a terrorist organization. This meant that, as a member of the FBI, Kat would be forced to work against SHIELD and their agents. She would be working against Hydra too, of course, but she had no problem with that. However, this was what she had been waiting for and Kat was exactly where she needed to be when, on the 9th of May, Agent Grant Ward was taken into custody by the FBI.


	9. An Introduction to Grant Ward

Chapter 9: An Introduction to Grant Ward

Kat was able to see Grant Ward only sporadically for a month following his arrest. Because of the injuries to his larynx, he had to have surgery and IV feeding tubes while his throat healed. He couldn't talk during that time, so Kat decided it was best to ease into their acquaintance. After the initial pain of the surgery subsided, she breezed into his hospital room one afternoon.

He did not look good. Of course, he was hooked up to various tubes and the results of his fight with Agent May were still in evidence. But even so, there seemed to be a pall hanging over him. As someone who was trained to be sensitive to atmosphere, Kat realized that there was a lot going on with Ward but she initially decided to ignore it.

"Hi, Grant," she said cheerily. "My name is Agent Katerina Sevda of the FBI. I'm a psychologist, so when you feel better and are able to talk, you'll be meeting with me on a regular basis. I just wanted to stop by, introduce myself and see if you needed anything."

Grant just looked at her without expression and shook his head. Kat hadn't expected anything more from him but, despite her best efforts to just go, she prevented herself from making a quick exit. The tension in the room was almost overwhelming. Kat stopped a minute and thought back to what she knew about Grant: his family of origin had been abusive, John Garrett had saved him from prison, he spent a significant amount of time with Ward and, as his SO, taught him everything he knew. Ward had an excellent record at the Academy, his performance reports were stellar, and he was a loner yet rumor had it that he had integrated well into Coulson's team, more than what would have been expected from a sleeper agent. Moreover, Grant didn't seem to be a Hydra True Believer but was instead beyond loyal to Garrett. Kat had read the reports from the members of the military held captive by Garrett right before he was killed as well as the ones from Coulson and his team. It all came back to Garrett.

While Kat was deep in thought, two nurses came in and started checking Grant's vitals and pain medication. While they were not exactly rough, Kat could tell that they weren't being gentle either. They did not ask him any questions but talked only to each other and looked at Ward with distaste if they looked at him at all. For his part, Grant seemed to stoically endure whatever they did to him.

"Excuse me!" Kat said to get their attention as they finished up their tasks. The two nurses turned to her. "Hi. I'm his psychologist, Dr. Sevda, and I'd like to know how he is doing." Kat said in an even tone.

"Well, his vitals seem to be fine and the surgery went well. He'll have to keep the trach in for a week along with the IVs and he won't be able to talk for a while," the one in charge said with a bit of a smirk. She turned to go.

"What about his level of pain?" Kat inquired.

The other nurse looked up from where he was arranging wires and collecting materials. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Kat started patiently, "how do you know whether he needs more pain medication if you didn't ask him about his level of pain?"

The two nurses looked at each other and shrugged as if they didn't care. "I'm sure he'll let us know if he needs something," the male nurse said with a hint of a smile. Kat started a slow burn but knew she needed to wait.

"Well, why don't we find out now?" Kat said pleasantly as she walked toward the bed and met Grant's eyes. "Grant, on a scale of 10 with 1 meaning you're not in any pain and 10 meaning you're in the worst pain, what is your level of pain right now?" Grant turned his head away but turned back to look at Kat in surprise when she gently took his hand. "Grant," she said in a low voice, "I know that you're in pain right now. There is absolutely no point in making yourself suffer and, what's more, I won't allow it. Now, you can either let me know how you feel or I can have them bump up the pain medication to where I think it should be. I imagine that I will err on the side of caution, so if you would prefer not to be heavily medicated, then give me an honest answer."

Grant held up a hand to indicate 5. Kat rolled her eyes, let go of his hand and walked back to the nurses. "I think we can assume that's at least a 7. Can you adjust his meds accordingly?" The nurses nodded, adjusted the drip and once again turned to go. "Oh, I also wanted to ask about his other injuries." The nurses looked confused. "He was in a bad fight not long ago and had a number of contusions, bruises and possibly sprains. He also had severe injuries to his foot. How are all of those healing?"

"Umm….I'm not certain; I'll have to check," the female nurse said, turning to go.

Kat felt a wave of anger wash over her. Now was the time. "Wait a minute!" she said in a harsh voice. She felt rather than saw Grant look over at her. "I realize that Grant Ward is considered a traitor and an enemy to this country but he is still a human being who deserves the best care you can provide! Your job is not to sit in judgment on your patients but to help people heal from whatever injuries they have. For this particular patient, that means that you and your colleagues will treat _all_ of his injuries, not just the ones you care to see. It also means that you will provide him with the utmost in patient care, up to and including courtesy, because if you do not, believe me, I will hear about it and I will make your lives hell! Do we understand each other?" The nurses nodded, looking scared. "I also expect to be updated daily on his condition and I will be having a word with your supervisor to ensure that my instructions are followed." The nurses nodded again. Kat turned away and said dismissively, "Now you can go." The nurses scuttled out.

Kat took a deep breath and felt her body calm down a bit. She walked back over to Grant who was looking at her with a solemn expression. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "No matter what you've done, you deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and I intend to see that you get that." He gave a kind of half-hearted shrug and turned his face to the window. Kat continued to stand there feeling like there was something else that he needed.

"Grant," she said to get him to look at her again. "Is there something you would like to ask me?"

He again shook his head but this time she could see the rigid set of his shoulders and, when he finally turned back to look at her, a hint of emotion in his eyes. Despite his excellent attempt at masking his feelings – and he was better at it than most people – Kat could tell that he was holding back an intense emotion, most likely sorrow. Whatever John Garrett had been to him (and she would figure out the details of that later), Grant was devastated by his death yet, given his circumstances, could not allow himself to truly grieve. His captors were angry enough that any sign of weakness would be commented upon and treated with gloating satisfaction. While she understood the temptation of that, Grant was still a human being with emotions that needed to be, if not expressed immediately, at least acknowledged.

"Okay. I need to go but I'll be back later. Get used to my face because," she smiled a bit, "you'll be seeing a lot of it." Her smile left and an expression of compassion replaced it. "But before I leave, I wanted to let you know that I realize how important John Garrett was to you and I'm sorry for your loss."

Grant's face twisted in surprise as he looked up at her. Kat smiled a little, patted his shoulder gently (she wasn't sure where he was wounded and didn't want to hurt him), and left the room. Behind her, she heard Grant's breathing catch.


	10. Talk Therapy

Chapter 10: Talk Therapy

Six months later, Grant Ward was brought into Kat's office. By now, the guards knew the drill since these visits happened once a week: they would remove Ward's chains and stand outside the door until called. Their wait could last anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours. Since her office was soundproof, they had no idea what was going on inside, a fact that initially was worrying but now had become routine.

Grant had come a long way from when she first met him in the hospital. Kat had visited him several times a week during his stay in the hospital, mostly to let him see a friendly face and make certain that he was receiving the care that he needed. On her second visit, she brought a whiteboard, marker and eraser so that Grant could "talk" if he needed to. He rarely did but Kat didn't let that stop her. During her visit, she would talk about the weather, current events (carefully staying away from anything about SHIELD or Hydra), movies, television and even books she was reading. While she shied away from personal topics, her goal was to help Grant realize that there was more to life than just spying, work and betrayal. She also brought a Kindle for him to read the books she downloaded for him. A few of Grant's regular nurses were fine with this. As one told Kat, "He sure doesn't act like a bad guy." However, the majority of his guards and the rest of the medical staff were aghast at a prisoner being treated so well but Kat was adamant that her directives be followed.

After he was transferred to prison, Grant was required to come for weekly visits to her office. The first time was a bit of a disaster as he completely refused to talk even though she knew that he was physically capable of doing so.

After her first three questions went unanswered, Kat just looked at Grant. The two of them had a staring contest which went on for quite a while. Even though it made her uncomfortable, Kat knew she couldn't let him win, so she searched for evidence of his true feelings until he finally looked away.

"Grant," she said. He turned to face her. "I get it. You're in prison and there is little you do that is under your control. By making you talk when you don't want to, about things you'd rather forget, I'm taking away even more of that control. So, let me get to the heart of the matter. You're here because I think I can help you and because the FBI wants to know more about Hydra. You can refuse to talk to me if you want; I'm not going to try and make you. But, regardless, you will be sitting in my office once a week for at least an hour. I can always do other things," she said with a shrug. "But you're never going to get better and you're never going to have even the chance of getting out of prison unless you decide that you want to cooperate. The choice is yours."

With that, Kat got up, grabbed a book and plopped down on her couch. She read for 40 minutes straight until Grant cleared his throat. Then she looked at him with her eyebrows raised.

"There is another therapist who comes to talk with me at the prison. I thought you were going to be my psychologist," he said.

"Technically, I am your supervising psychologist. I won't be the one doing the actual therapy but Dr. Stoddard does keep me updated about what you all do and do not talk about. I understand that you haven't been talking with her either."

Grant nodded, so Kat continued, "That has to change. You need to talk with her because she can help you."

"So why am I coming here to see you?" Grant asked.

Kat smiled. "That's a good question. My professional role is to ensure your cooperation about Hydra and evaluate your fitness for various prison programs. My personal role is to teach you about life."

Grant looked annoyed. "I'm over 30 years old. I already know about life."

"Grant, you may be an adult but there are lots of things you don't know, lots of experiences you haven't had. If you give me a chance, I can teach you about things Garrett never even dreamed of."

Grant still looked irritated but he nodded, so Kat ended their session for that day. No sense in pushing things.

From then on, he had willingly talked to Dr. Stoddard about his family, his recruitment by Garrett and his time as a Hydra agent. Unfortunately for the FBI, Grant's knowledge of Hydra was fairly limited given that he was a sleeper agent and, as such, his main priority was to gather information. Grant believed that he would have been told more about Hydra once he was activated but, as he had been captured quickly, there hadn't been time to tell him much. However, what was bad for the FBI was good for Grant himself as his therapist was then able to concentrate less on gathering intel and more on healing him.

The time he spent with Kat was different. True to her word, she taught him about how healthy families raised children and what positive sibling relationships looked like. They discussed the ways in which his adolescence would have been different had he been able to live it like a normal teenager. They also went over self-esteem, adult relationships, healthy emotions, appropriate emotional expression and effective communication. Despite Grant's discomfort, Kat also insisted on talking about healthy sexuality and what both physical and emotional intimacy looked like.

Kat marveled at the ways in which Grant had changed since she first met him. He was no longer the closed off man who couldn't talk but was turning into someone who was trying to listen to himself and communicate his wants and ideas. He was learning the delicate balance between giving of himself and making sure his needs were met. She felt sad when she realized what an amazing person he could have been with a normal upbringing but was very pleased with his progress. Not only was he smart but he was emotionally adaptable as well. It was one reason why his therapy had been progressing so quickly. The only topic neither Dr. Stoddard nor Kat had been able to approach was Grant's time with Coulson's team; it was just too volatile a subject for now. Kat thought she knew enough about what had happened through reading the reports Coulson's team had submitted but she had yet to bring it up to Grant.

"So, what's new?" Kat asked Grant cheerfully as she watched him settle himself into a comfy chair. She was struck anew at how good-looking he was, especially with some animation in his face. Of course, he would look better in a color besides prison-orange but that couldn't be helped at the moment. She frowned when she saw the healing bruises on his face and the careful way he lowered himself into the chair.

Grant chuckled and replied, "Not much. I am in prison, you know."

Kat stood up suddenly and moved closer to him to examine his face. Grant shrank back subtly when she raised her hand to touch his face. She knew that he hoped his reaction had gone unnoticed but, of course, it hadn't. He really should know better.

"What happened?" she asked sharply.

"Oh, it's nothing, just a few scratches. I'm fine," he replied with ease.

Kat narrowed her eyes at him. "Grant, I know that Dr. Stoddard has talked to you about this! Being physically assaulted is not nothing and it certainly is not fine! You may be able to carry on physically but this isn't normal and I will not sit here," Grant smiled. "Stand here," she corrected herself, "and let you shrug this off. Now, what happened?"

Grant's smile faded. "Some of the other prisoners ganged up on me in the prison yard. I was able to fend them off but they got in some good punches before the guards broke it up." He looked down. "It seems like things like that are happening to me more frequently but I don't know why. I haven't been doing anything different."

Kat returned to her chair thoughtfully. Perhaps it was time. She leaned forward to make sure he knew she was serious. "I know that for most of your life, you've had to deal with things on your own. But I want you to know that you are not alone any more. It may not seem like it now, but there are people who care about you and we will not let you be thrown to the wolves. Okay?"

Grant looked startled but he said, "Okay."

Kat sat back. "Good, make sure you keep it in mind. Listen, I hate to do this to you since you took the trouble to make the trip," Grant smiled faintly at that, "but I need to cut this short today. I have a lot of things to prepare for before my time off."

"When do you leave?" he asked just to be polite. What did it matter to him when she left?

"Friday night," she answered with a direct stare. "Just after I get off of work."

Grant nodded as he stood up. He was a bit puzzled that she was dismissing him so early and right after such a bombshell too. That wasn't like her. Grant also was disappointed that he wasn't going to see Kat for two weeks (he would never admit it to her but he truly enjoyed their time together), especially since he was having all the trouble with the other prisoners, but her vacation wasn't a surprise. She had been preparing him for it for a while; he just hadn't known when exactly it would occur.

"Grant," Kat said before he reached the door. He turned to face her and was a bit startled to discover she was right behind him. How had she moved so quickly and quietly? Kat touched his arm gently as she looked up at him. "I know this has been a hard time for you but I promise that things will be okay. You've made a lot of progress and one or two setbacks aren't going to compromise that. I realize that my vacation is coming at a bad time but I want you to know that if you truly need me, I will be there for you," she said with an intensity that was unusual for their conversations.

"Thank you. I appreciate that," he replied.

"Make sure that you remember it!" she called as he went out the door. Kat hoped that upcoming events would not turn her words into a lie. She rarely made promises but, in this instance, she thought he needed to hear it.

Once Grant was gone, Kat took out her cell and called her boss. "It's time," she said.


	11. Escape

Chapter 11: Escape

On Friday evening, Kat was just pulling out of the parking lot of the FBI office when her phone rang. "This is Agent Sevda," she answered.

The voice of her direct supervisor said, "Kat! Thank goodness I caught you!" he said with some urgency. "Tell me where you are and we will send some agents to protect you."

"Sir? Why would I need protection?" Kat asked.

"Grant Ward escaped from prison over an hour ago."

"Okay," Kat said slowly. "I don't understand why that means I need protection. I'm not a high value target for Hydra. They had a chance to kill me before and didn't take it. And as for Agent Ward, if he's acting on his own, I don't believe that he would try to hurt me. Besides, if you'll recall sir, I am leaving for two weeks and will be incommunicado. He'll probably be caught before I even get back."

"Well, all right. If you feel safe, I'll have to trust your judgment," he responded with a hint of doubt in his voice.

"Thank you, sir. Good luck and I'll see you when I get back."

Kat ended the call and threw the phone out of the window. Seeing a parking garage coming up, Kat turned into it, parked next to a black SUV in a Reserved spot and got out of the car. She opened up the SUV, pulled out her bags from the truck and then hesitated next to her car. "Are you coming, Grant?" she asked.

Grant popped up immediately from the backseat (thank goodness he'd had the sense to change out of his prison clothes!) and Kat had the satisfaction of seeing the surprise on his face before he once again looked emotionless. He cocked his head and asked, "How did you know I was here?"

She smiled. "I didn't; it was an educated guess. Now, unless you want to get caught, I suggest you get into the truck," she said tilting her head toward the black SUV. "The windows are tinted, so feel free to get in the front."

The two of them drove out of the garage and were several miles down the road before Grant spoke again. "So you knew I was there but you're not scared that I'm going to hurt you. And clearly you're hiding our trail." Kat nodded. "Why?"

"Well, I know that your escape wasn't arranged by Hydra, so I'm not worried that you will try to hurt me on their orders. Besides, it would have been pretty ungrateful of you to try to force the cooperation of the person who engineered your escape," Kat said lightly.

Grant looked completely confused. "You were the one who helped me escape?"

"Yep," Kat replied. She looked over at him and smiled. "I realize that you don't hold the FBI in high regard but surely you didn't think that their security was so lax that you could easily escape on your own?" Seeing the look on his face and knowing that he _did_ think he had done it on his own merits, she shook her head and started laughing.

"I've been in prison for months. Why now?" Grant asked.

Kat stopped laughing and her expression turned serious. "We heard rumors that there were going to be at least two attempts on your life. If it matters, one of them was from Hydra. Like I said earlier, I care about you and I wasn't going to let that happen. Plus, you have an incredibly valuable skill set that is just going to waste with you sitting in prison. If there are ways you can atone for your mistakes, I think you deserve the chance to do so."

"You said _we_ heard rumors? Surely you don't mean the FBI. Who is we?" Grant asked suspiciously.

Kat smiled again. "Did you really think that Hydra was the only organization with sleeper agents?"

"SHIELD?" Grant asked incredulously. "SHIELD was the one who broke me out of prison?"

"No, not SHIELD. I no longer work for them; they discarded me months ago," Kat said a bit testily. "But don't worry," she said as she saw Grant's face darken. "I still work for the good guys. SHIELD isn't the only group around that takes an interest in world and interplanet affairs."

Grant was silent as he thought. "Wait, you work for Tony Stark?"

Kat snorted. "Hell, no! Can you imagine the nightmare that working for Tony would be?"

Grant smiled a bit at that. "Who then?"

"I work for Pepper Potts," Kat replied. "Speaking of whom…" she said as she punched in a number on what looked to Grant like a burner phone.

Pepper's voice (it was a woman's voice; Grant assumed it was Pepper) answered immediately. "Kat? Do you have the package?"

"Yes, I have it. So far, so good. Have you talked with him?" Kat responded.

"Yes," Pepper replied. "He's waiting for your call."

"Okay, thanks. I'll report back soon." Kat hung up the phone and looked briefly over at Grant. "So, what was the plan of escape? Or did you even have one?"

Grant shook his head. "I was taking things one step at a time. I thought that once I grabbed you, I would determine how best to get out of the country. Of course, I wasn't aware that it was really you grabbing me. So, given that you have been one step ahead of me the whole time," he said with a hint of bitterness, "do _you_ have any ideas?"

Kat nodded, noting his repressed anger. "Actually, I do but I need to talk with you about it first. Grant, I realize that you're angry because things are not the way you thought they were. I don't blame you. In fact, I expect you to yell at me about it later. But for now I'm asking you to put your anger away because you need to trust me."

Grant snorted and said nothing, looking stonily out of the window.

"Do you remember telling Skye that despite your lies and deception, your feelings were real?" Kat asked carefully.

Grant turned his head to look at her so quickly that she was afraid he might have snapped his neck. "How do you know about that?" he demanded.

Kat rolled her eyes. "I _told_ you I was your supervising psychologist. I read reports. Did you think that Coulson's team wouldn't submit any about you?"

Grant remained silent. Kat tried again, "Well, do you remember that?"

Grant snorted again and turned back to the window. "Of course I remember that!"

"It's the same for me. I couldn't tell you about my true agenda but everything else was real. I do care about you and everything I did was designed to help you. I was the one who got you reading material, softer pillows and extra time in the weight room. Did you never question why the guards didn't mistreat you? Did it not occur to you to wonder why the prisoners never bothered you until recently? I did everything I could to try and help you heal because I care about you, Grant!" Kat said with passion.

Grant turned back to look at Kat. "Garrett said he cared about me too when all he really cared about was himself. You and Dr. Stoddard were the ones who taught me that! Why should I trust you when you've been manipulating me just like he did?"

"That's a fair question but I don't think you're thinking it through. When Garrett manipulated you, he did it purely for his own interest. There was little about his 'care' that was designed to benefit you or, if it did, it was just a nice by-product. The same is not true for me. What did I have to gain by giving you reading material, making sure you weren't mistreated and helping you figure out who you are? I could have forced your cooperation without doing all those things – in fact, it probably would have been easier without teaching you to think for yourself – but I did them so you would get better. Did Garrett do that?"

Grant didn't answer, so Kat continued, "And here's something else to consider. Yes, I want you to trust me and follow my plan because not only will it help me but it will also help you. This is the next step on your journey. However, if you choose not to, if you say no, then okay. I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do. If you don't want to trust me, then I will drop you off and never tell anyone I saw you. You will owe me nothing." While trying her best to keep her eyes on the road, Kat turned to look at him directly. "That's the best I can do, Grant. Would Garrett have made that same offer?"

Grant was silent and Kat kept her peace for as long as she could. She knew that Grant needed to make the decision for himself. After about five minutes, she said, "I'm sorry. I don't want to rush your decision but we're working on a deadline here. Will you trust me or am I dropping you somewhere?"

Grant sighed. "I'll trust you. For now!" he added in a hard voice. "But I'm not saying that I like it and I _will_ be yelling at you about it later."

Kat nodded. "Fair enough. I actually think that's a pretty healthy response," she said with a little smile. "Okay then, since you're going to trust me, I have another call to make."

Grant watched her punch another number into her phone and felt his anxiety go sky high when she said, "Phil? It's Kat. We're on our way!"


	12. Back on the Bus

Chapter 12: Back on the Bus

As soon as Kat hung up, Grant burst out, "We're going to Coulson?" Kat nodded. "No. No way. They hate me and they have every reason to!"

"I'm not going to tell you that this will be easy. It won't be, for you or for them. They were deeply hurt by your betrayal and actions but Grant, you need to do this and so do they. No one's going to be able to move forward until some healing takes place. Besides, they need you."

"Yeah, right. What do they need me for?" he scoffed.

"Well, for the moment, they need your help in clearing out Hydra cells. They also need information on the evolution Garrett went through after he was dosed with that regenerative drug." Kat noticed that he looked like he was going to be sick. "What?" He remained silent. "Grant, you need to tell me what's going on."

Grant's body sort of shrunk and Kat had to strain to hear him. "They were the only people who ever cared about me and I betrayed them. I hurt them. I don't even know if Fitz is okay. How do I ever make up for that? Why would they want to be around me?"

"Because they love you," Kat said firmly.

Grant's head whipped around to look at her. "What?" he asked incredulously. "How could they?" He paused for a moment, "Wait, how do you even know that?"

"Because I read their reports and I talked with Phil. And contrary to what you used to believe, people don't choose to feel; they have to deal with their emotions regardless if they want to have them. They fell in love with the real Grant Ward just like you fell in love with them." Grant looked at her doubtfully. "With all of them, even May," Kat insisted. "Do you know why affairs are so much harder to get over than other marital problems?" Grant shook his head. "It's because the person who hurt you was the person you thought you knew, the person who was supposed to love you. It isn't the actions that hurt the most; it's the fact that you were deceived and now you don't know what to believe or if you can or even should trust that person again. That's what your team is feeling about you although on a much larger scale. They love you but they don't know who you are, if you can be trusted, or if how you felt about them was real."

"It was all real," he muttered.

Kat smiled. "I know that and you know that. Now you just have to convince them of that."

"Easier said than done."

"I know. That's why I said it wouldn't be easy. Is it worth trying?"

At Grant's nod, Kat said, "Okay then," just as they pulled up at an airfield near the Bus. Grant still looked like he was going to be sick though, so Kat touched his shoulder. "It's going to be fine. You're not alone. That's why I'm here," she said quietly before getting out. Then she went around, got her bags and waited for Grant to walk beside her toward the plane. As they got closer, Phil Coulson walked down the ramp.

When she got near Phil, Kat dropped her bags and practically threw herself into his arms. Puzzled, Grant noted that both of them seemed to have tears in their eyes when they pulled apart but he remained silent. There was no way he was going to be the first to speak. Grant still remembered like it was yesterday Phil Coulson telling him that his torture was going to be mostly internal and a little external.

Kat smiled at Phil. "I don't know whether I should be mad at you for not telling me you're alive or just grateful that you are."

Phil smiled back, "Yeah, I get that a lot." He paused, his face changing into a sad expression, "I am so sorry that I wasn't able to be there for you when…"

Kat hurriedly interrupted him. "I know you would have been there if you could have. Now," she said glancing back at Grant, "where are you going to put us and have you told the others we're coming?"

Phil finally looked up at Grant without expression. "Yes, the others know that you're coming and I have no problem telling you that they aren't happy about it. At all. However, I agreed to this, so we're going to make the best of it." He turned back to face Kat, "We'll go over the rules later but for now, we have a bunk for you. Ward will stay in the interrogation room. We have a cot set up for him there."

Kat looked like she was going to argue but instead just sighed and nodded. "I'll take him there. Grant, I assume you know the way?"

Grant nodded and set off toward the room he'd come to dread. It held such awful memories for him but honestly, this wasn't as bad as he imagined it was going to be. At least he wasn't in chains. Yet. And the thought of seeing his former teammates filled him with anxiety, sadness and, if he was being honest with himself, excitement. He wanted so badly to see them again, all of them, but he didn't know if he could face them. But there was this little part of him – this tiny part that Kat and Dr. Stoddard had helped to grow, the one that believed maybe he did deserve to have good things – that couldn't help but be glad he was out of prison.

Kat looked around the interrogation room and sneered just a bit, trying not to let Grant see her expression. She wasn't thrilled with how this was going but it was early and anything could happen. "Well," she said to Grant, "this isn't ideal but it'll have to do for now. At least you're safe. I'll work on the rest."

Grant smiled a bit as he sat down on the cot. It was uncomfortable but nothing he couldn't manage. "I'll be fine. I didn't expect anything more." Kat turned to go and he caught her hand. It was the first time he had ever touched her and Kat looked surprised. "Thank you," he said. He wanted to say more but didn't know what could even encompass all of what he was feeling.

Kat nodded, knowing him well enough to hear what was unsaid. She smiled back at him. "You're welcome." Then she left to find Phil.


	13. The Team

Chapter 13: The Team

"Grant being in the interrogation room is not what we discussed!" Kat said to Phil once she found him in his office.

"I know but the rest of the team doesn't feel safe around him. Honestly, it was all I could do to get some of them to agree to stay on the Bus with him in it. This was the best solution for now. They don't understand why he's here and, quite frankly, they're not too happy with you for bringing him."

Kat nodded. She had anticipated this. "But we're agreed that he will get his own bunk and soon? He can't start earning your trust if he's not given a chance!" Phil nodded, so Kat moved on. "How's Leo?"

"He has his good days and bad days but, overall, I think he's getting better. He had a really hard time at first with being able to move his body and he had a lot of confusion but that's been going away. Now, it's mainly severe migraines," Phil explained.

"Is he expected to make a full recovery?" she asked.

"We don't know for sure but we certainly hope so. Simmons is very pleased with his progress."

"Good," Kat said and then her manner turned brisk. "I don't know what you've planned but I think it best that I get settled in my bunk and then maybe we can call a team meeting. Apparently, I have some questions to answer."

Phil nodded. "I'll let them know to meet in 20 minutes. Is Ward attending?"

"No, I think it best for me to talk with them without him at first."

"OK. Come on. I can't wait for you to see the rest of the Bus! It's really great," Phil said leading her in the direction of the bunks. Kat smiled. He may have died but he was still the same old Phil.

Twenty minutes later, Kat entered the briefing room and looked around at all the grim faces. The only people who didn't seem too upset were Trip and Fitz. "This should be fun," Kat thought even as she broke into a smile and went to hug Trip.

"Kat!" Trip said as he stood to put his arms around her. "The Director told us you were coming but I had to see it to believe it! Girl, I thought we were rid of you for good when you went on leave last year."

"Yeah well, you should have known better! I was down but I certainly was not out!" Kat rolled her eyes and then said in a sing-song voice, "Once an Agent…" Trip joined in, so that they finished together, "…always an Agent!" The two of them laughed together.

"Well, isn't this cozy! Clearly the two of you know each other," Skye grumbled.

Kat's smile faded as she turned to face the rest of the group. She appreciated Trip's reply, "Hell, yeah! We're both SHIELD babies; we go way back," but knew that she needed to get things off on the right foot. "I'm going to dispense with the introductions because I already know who you are and you've been told who I am. However, what you may not have been told is what I do. For the past year, I've been working undercover in the FBI in order to gather intel from captured Hydra agents, including as you know, Grant Ward."

Kat looked around as she said this in order to capture everyone's reactions. May tightened her lips but said nothing. Skye snorted and looked down at the table. Fitz and Trip just nodded while Simmons looked like she was ready to burst.

"Well yes, that's fine but why did you have to bring Agent Ward here? He kidnapped Skye and almost killed Fitz and me!" she blurted out.

"I know all that, Jemma. I read the reports," Kat said to her while holding up a hand to forestall another objection.

May suddenly spoke up, "Weren't you PsyOps when you were with SHIELD?" Kat nodded. "Then why were you gathering intel? Isn't that a job for specialists?"

"Usually that would be true but these were special circumstances. Not only was I trying to figure out how to find active Hydra cells but I also was trying to gain knowledge about how the Hydra infiltration actually occurred. If SHIELD is to return for good, then you need to know how to prevent such an event from happening again." Kat breathed a little easier when May nodded thoughtfully.

"But that still doesn't explain why you brought Ward on board," Skye said. "You could have gotten all that information from him while he rotted in a prison cell."

"Grant is a special case and there are several reasons why we had to remove him from the prison environment. First of all, we got information that there were going to be several attempts on his life. And while I know that you're all angry with him, I'm guessing that none of you want him to die." Several of them stared moodily at the table while others nodded, so Kat continued. "Neither did we, so we removed him for his own safety. Second, by virtue of his relationship with John Garrett, Grant held a relatively high position within Hydra and we believe that he can be of use in destroying the existing cells. Third, he has an amazing skill set that was being wasted in prison. Stark Industries, the people I work for, believe that not only should we use his skills for our purposes but that he should be given the chance to atone for his mistakes."

As she knew they would, every person at the table burst into speech at this point. Kat just smiled slightly and held up a restraining hand. "I am aware that this is a controversial viewpoint and I don't expect you all to just accept it immediately. However, I will remind you of two things. First, SHIELD has a long history of rehabilitating people. In case you've forgotten, one of the Avengers, Agent Natasha Romanoff, had quite the disturbing past before she started working for SHIELD. There's a reason her nickname is the Black Widow and this is coming from someone who loves her. Second, Director Coulson has already agreed to have Grant on board to help with future missions, so it is a done deal."

"So why are _you_ here?" Skye demanded aggressively.

Kat had wondered when they would get around to questioning her role. "I'm here to help Grant," she said as she noted several of their disgusted looks. "But I'm also here to help the team. We are aware of how difficult this situation will be, so my role will also be as an advisor for all of you. If you have questions or concerns, please let me know. And if you have challenges with Grant, then by all means come talk to me. For all extents and purposes, I am his SO."

At their stunned expressions, Kat decided to end the briefing. It was enough for today. She nodded to Phil who said to the team, "That's all," as the two of them left the room. Phil looked mildly impressed and said to Kat, "That went better than expected. Maybe this won't be a total disaster!"


	14. Build-Up

Chapter 14: Build-Up

It had been a tough two weeks, Kat acknowledged to herself one morning while she sat on the stairs watching Grant go through his workout routine. True to his word, Phil had moved Grant to a bunk a few days after they had arrived. However, Grant would wear a tracking bracelet similar to the one Skye had at one time and Coulson made it known that Grant also would be supervised when not in his bunk. Kat supervised most of Grant's time and tried to make the most of it. The two of them worked out, cooked, discussed movies and books, played games (although not Battleship) and, of course, had their usual sessions.

Trip spelled her occasionally and, by the look of it, seemed to be getting along well with Grant. When she asked him what they talked about, Trip just shrugged. "Not much, specialist stuff mostly. He's not real talkative but, between you and me, I think he's dying to ask about Garrett. He just doesn't know how to do it."

Kat nodded thoughtfully. She knew that Trip's relationship with Garrett was a sore spot not only with Grant but also with the team. No one knew just what to make of it and Trip didn't talk about it voluntarily. Kat suspected that he was worried that the team would start questioning his loyalty.

The rest of the team tended to avoid Grant as much as possible even though Kat insisted that he join them for mealtimes and group meetings. Only Fitz would try speaking to him but when Grant wouldn't give much more than one word responses, he would eventually give up.

After Grant sat down beside her to rest, Kat asked, "How are things?"

He shook his head and smiled a bit. "You know how they are, Kat; hell, the two of us are practically joined at the hip! How do _you_ think they are?"

"Hard," she replied.

Grant nodded. After several minutes of silence, he sighed and said, "It's hard thinking about what could have been. Given what I've done, I don't blame them for hating me. I just wish I could go back and do everything over. But I can't, so all I can do is be prepared to do whatever they need me to do."

"You know, life isn't just about what you do; it's also about who you are and how you connect with others. It might help if you actually talked with the team," Kat said.

Grant snorted. "Yeah, right. They'd probably fall over in shock if I started a conversation. Even if they wanted to hear what I had to say, they aren't used to me talking much."

"That was the old you, the one who had to keep up a cover. The new you is someone they don't know. And they'll never get the chance to know this Grant if you don't let them. Besides," she smiled, nudging her shoulder with his, "talking can be fun."

He smiled back at her. "Maybe for you. I've noticed that you've been doing a lot of talking. And other things too. Let's see. You've been doing Tai Chi with May, cooking with Simmons, playing cards with Skye, and taking walks around the Bus with Fitz. The only people I never see you do anything with are Coulson and Trip. What are you up to?"

Kat said nothing.

"Wait, don't tell me!" Grant continued. "You don't need to bond with Coulson and Trip because you already know them, so you've been trying to connect with the others." Kat raised her eyebrows at him but remained silent, watching him work it all out. "Ahh, I get it. You think that if they like _you_, then they'll be more willing to give _me_ a chance by association." He laughed. "That's pretty devious but I wouldn't count on it actually working!"

Kat sighed. "People do things for all sorts of reasons, so I don't think devious is the word I'd use. Sure, I would like for them to not only like but trust me and if that has benefits for you, I won't be sorry. But that's not the only reason I've been spending time with them. They're a great team and are worth getting to know."

Grant nodded, looking ashamed. "You're right. They are worth getting to know."

Kat ducked her head in order to make eye contact with him. "You're worth getting to know too, Grant. And that's the thing here. The team doesn't know you, not the real you. I'd be surprised if _you_ know the real you; the real you is someone you can all get to know together."

"I don't know how to do that," Grant said softly.

Kat put her hand on his shoulder as she stood up. "Try talking," she said as she went up the stairs. As Grant went back to his workout, Kat saw that Skye had been watching them and moved to join her. The two women turned as one to look down at Grant.

"He's fun to watch, isn't he?" Kat started.

Before she could catch herself, Skye nodded and smiled slightly. Then she looked over at Kat and the smile dropped off her face. "You two look pretty close. I lived with him on this plane for close to a year and I never saw him laugh as much as he does when he's with you." Kat smiled to herself. Skye sounded jealous.

"It's a unique relationship," she admitted. "My job allows me to know things about people that others don't. A lot of times that makes people feel comfortable with me because they don't have to worry about hiding who they are." Kat wondered if Skye would take the bait.

Skye totally bit. "Since he's been back on the Bus, I realized that I don't know anything about him. I don't know his favorite food, his favorite color, the kind of music he likes or even if he has a favorite author. I know a little about how he grew up but I don't know why he joined Hydra or why he betrayed us! I don't even know how he feels at all most of the time!" she said, her frustration evident.

"Why don't you ask him?"

"What if everything he tells me is a lie? After what he did, how can I trust anything he says?" Skye asked somewhat loudly. The average person probably couldn't tell but Kat noted Grant's body language and realized he heard Skye's questions.

"Trust is built, not given. Give Grant a chance to earn back your trust. He could lie to you but I doubt he would. What would be in it for him? Ask him things and then see if what he tells you is true. He _wants_ to talk with you, Skye; he just doesn't know how to start. Grant both is and isn't the person you think he is. Not everything was a lie, just his mission. And there is a lot more to his history than you know." With that parting shot, Kat walked back down the stairs.

Over the next few days, Kat noticed Grant trying to talk to the team more. He discussed monkeys with Fitz, went over choke holds with Trip and she even overheard him talking about music with Skye. Kat thought things were going well until Jemma cornered her in the kitchen with a stormy look on her face, "Dr. Sevda, may I have a word?"

"Of course, Dr. Simmons. What can I do for you?"

"I realize that you have a job to do and that Director Coulson agreed to let Agent Ward back on the Bus. I understand that but what I do not think _you_ understand is how difficult it is! You seem to treat Agent Ward like he is a regular person but he isn't. I don't know how he got that way or why but he's evil! Agent Ward tried to kill Fitz and me – he almost succeeded with Fitz! – and I don't know if I can ever even look at him again without remembering that!" Jemma burst out.

Kat looked at her sympathetically. "It sounds like you're having trouble dealing with that whole experience."

Jemma looked confused for a moment and then irritated. "Perhaps I am struggling with it a bit but that isn't the point!"

"I think it is," Kat insisted. "Jemma, what you went through had to be incredibly traumatic and I have no doubt that you're probably experiencing some symptoms of post-traumatic stress. But as long as you hate Grant for what happened, you're not going to be able to let it go. If you allow me to, I can help you with that."

"He was the cause of it! How can I not hate him?"

"Yes, he released the medpod into the ocean but Grant also saved your life once, right?"

Jemma nodded, the last statement having the effect of somewhat decreasing her anger. She looked down. "I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"I don't know. I guess I'm wondering why the bad act gets more weight than the good one. From what I understand, Grant didn't have to jump after you. He could have let Fitz do it or just let you die. Instead, he chose to try and save you at great risk to himself. Then, he held you above the water for a long time waiting to be rescued. Why would someone evil do that, especially when doing nothing would have been easier?"

"I don't know." Jemma looked down, her anger having given way to sadness and confusion. "I don't know what to believe about him or even how to talk to him anymore."

"I know," Kat said gently, putting her hand on Jemma's shoulder. "And I know this will be difficult but I think you should talk with Grant about what happened. Jemma, if it helps, I don't believe that Grant is evil. He's made some incredibly poor decisions but he did have his reasons and I know that he cares about the people on this team. I realize that talking with him will be a challenge but you owe it to yourself to at least try because I don't think you'll be able to put this behind you until you do. And my offer still stands: if you need help, please tell me and I'll do what I can."

Jemma nodded and Kat left the kitchen pleased at how things were going. She headed directly to Phil's office, knocked and went in. Both Phil and May were there, so Kat jumped right in. "I think we need to have another team meeting and this time, everyone should be there."

Phil nodded, "If you think they're ready."


	15. Confrontation

Chapter 15: Confrontation

Once again, everyone was sitting in a circle but, at least to Kat, the atmosphere seemed more relaxed than last time. But then Grant walked in, sat down between Kat and Trip, and the tension became so thick you could almost cut it with a knife. Kat wondered to herself if there were psychologists who loved this kind of group meeting because she sure didn't. Still, if healing were going to occur, she knew it was necessary.

Phil smiled at the group. "I know this isn't going to be easy but Dr. Sevda and I think it is important that we talk over some concerns, hash everything out." He nodded at Kat.

"Some of the missions coming up are going to be tough ones, missions where success may depend on how well we work together as a team, so we need to learn to trust each other. Right now, that isn't the case. I realize that there are some hard truths that we have to face as a team, so I want to give everyone an opportunity to talk about them." Kat slowly looked around the room and made eye contact with each person. "I know that SHIELD is not big on talking but I always disagreed with that attitude and, as a _former_ SHIELD agent, I can now say that out loud. If we're going to trust each other and work together seamlessly, then we need to get on with things. Are we all agreed?"

Everyone nodded, some more slowly and reluctantly than others. "Ok, good. Grant, why don't you start?"

Grant took a deep breath and sat forward on his chair, looking at no one in particular. He and Kat had talked over this moment endlessly but now that it was here, he just wanted to run. However, he knew that if he ever wanted to be with the team as a full-fledged member, he needed to do this. "I know that you all hate me and don't know whether you can or should trust me again. I understand that and I know I deserve it because of what I've done. But I also want you to know that I'm sorry. I never wanted any of you to get hurt and I did my best to make sure that didn't happen but my best wasn't good enough. You may never like or trust me again but, no matter what, I'm still going to do everything I can to try and atone for what I did. Nothing can make up for my actions, especially for you Fitz, but I'm still going to try." He sat back, looking exhausted.

Skye leaned forward, her eyes stormy. "I get that you're sorry, Ward. But how do we know that you're not just sorry because your team lost? You say that you never wanted to hurt us but you still did. We don't even know why."

Grant turned to her. "I never cared about Hydra; I only cared about Garrett. All I was trying to do was make sure that he got what he needed in order to survive," Grant answered. He looked down. "I thought that I owed him everything but I was wrong. Now that he's dead, I'm learning how to make my own decisions." He looked back up. "I don't know much right now but what I do know is that I was wrong to have betrayed my team, my _true_ team. You are my family and I am willing to spend the rest of my life proving how much I care about you."

Jemma's eyes were full of tears as she burst out, "You did your best to try to make certain we didn't get hurt? Then why did you push our medpod into the ocean? How was that helping us?"

Grant turned to look at her directly. "Jemma, it was supposed to float," he said gently. "Garrett gave the order to kill you and I knew that if I didn't get you off the plane, he'd find someone else to do it. You have no idea how thankful I was when you both got into the medpod because you gave me a way to help you. We were flying low enough that I knew the fall wouldn't kill you and the medpod was supposed to float. I thought that the two of you would find a way to get back to the team and I was right. You did. I just didn't know the price you would pay for that," he finished in an anguished tone.

Jemma didn't say anything, apparently mulling his answer over. Fitz replied instead, "I don't hate you, Ward. I always knew you had reasons for what you did."

Grant looked at Fitz with tears in his eyes. Kat surreptitiously put her hand on his knee. "But I deserve your hatred, Fitz! I'm not a good man! I barely can live with myself because of how you've suffered because I was weak. All I ever wanted to do was protect people and I just end up hurting them instead. If I could, I would trade places with you but I can't. I don't know what to do to make it better."

Kat opened her mouth to say something but closed it in surprise when Fitz spoke up. "Ward, I knew that you were trying to help us. Don't you think that I figured that out? When I was down at the bottom of the ocean, when Jemma was still unconscious, I had a lot of time to think and I made my peace with what happened. I remembered all that you did for us. You jumped out of a plane to save Jemma. You saved me too because if you hadn't jumped, I would have and it probably wouldn't have ended well. You tried to keep me safe on our mission together and even were willing to die to let me get away. You used the Berserker Staff to save people even though it hurt you! The man who did all those things is not someone who was trying to hurt us because he wanted to. That's why I tried to kill Garrett, Ward! I did it so you could be free!"

Grant's mouth dropped open and he looked at Fitz in disbelief. Everyone was looking shocked. "You….did that…..for me?" Grant asked in an unsteady voice. His whole body was shaking.

Fitz smiled. "You're my friend, Ward. And what you can do to make it better is to treat me like I'm your friend too. Talking to me would be a good start." Kat hid her smile at this. Hadn't she _told_ Grant to talk to them?

Skye still looked angry. "I don't understand. What made Garrett so special? Why did you think you owed him anything?"

Grant took a deep breath and Kat wondered how much of his history he would feel comfortable sharing. She knew that Phil and probably May had already read his file but guessed they hadn't shared it with the rest of the team. She longed to tell them all of it but knew that the decision about what information he shared belonged to Grant, so she kept her silence.

"You know that my family was really messed up, that my older brother was abusive." Skye nodded. "When I was 15, I was about to be in really big trouble for trying to do something about him when Garrett stepped in and pulled me out of a hell. He dropped me off in the woods for years with only Buddy, his dog, for company. He would visit and teach me things. If I did well, I was rewarded. If I didn't, I was punished. At the time, I thought I had no other options and that he was only doing it because he truly cared for me." Grant's voice turned bitter, "Now I realize that he was really just turning me into his weapon."

Kat nodded. "John Garrett was a master manipulator and he brainwashed Grant. That's what my colleagues and I have been working all this time to undo. Most people don't understand how brainwashing works but all the elements were there in Grant's case: youth, isolation, fear, physical misery, lowered self-esteem, fact manipulation, and total dependency, so much so that Grant lost the ability to even want to think for himself. His brainwashing was so thorough that even his time with SHIELD wasn't enough to undo it. The closest Grant came to becoming his own person was when he was here with you. I think Garrett realized that and it was why he spent so much time working with the team. I also believe that's why he let it slip that he was The Clairvoyant to you, Phil. He knew that he needed to get Grant away from you before the damage was done and he was no longer his to control."

Again, Kat looked around and saw stunned faces, even Grant's. They had talked around the subject several times but never so directly. It made sense that he hadn't fully processed what brainwashing meant to him. The only person who didn't look shocked was Trip. He was nodding.

"Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. My training with Garrett was a lot different than what other agents did. He made us go through a lot of physically rigorous things and there were days when we weren't allowed to sleep. And we all knew that what Garrett wanted, Garrett got. If you let him down, there was hell to pay. But if you got him what he wanted, there was no one more charming," Trip said. "He was so smooth that I never wondered about the things we were doing until after I knew he was The Clairvoyant. Then I started questioning everything." Trip turned to face Grant. "Man, I can get how much you believed in him. I did too for a while and I was only with him for a few months." He shook his head and looked at Grant with sympathy. "I can't imagine what it would have been like to be with him alone, for years."

The silence that followed Trip's statement was deep. Grant almost physically withdrew into himself, reaching blindly for Kat's hand and she grasped it quickly. She saw Skye's eyes narrow when their hands met. Kat was about to call a halt to the meeting when May spoke up for the first time since the meeting began.

"The one thing I want to know, Dr. Sevda, is why you left SHIELD. Did you quit or were you asked to leave?" May asked grimly.

Kat squeezed Grant's hand and smiled. "Oh, I was pretty much asked to leave." She had wondered when this was going to come up.

"What happened? I never heard anything about that," Phil said with concern lacing his tone.

"I left because Maria Hill asked me to after I gave her a report suggesting that Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD," Kat said. She looked around at everyone's stunned expressions and smiled even wider. She was going to enjoy this!

"You knew that Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD months before they revealed themselves?" Phil asked hesitatingly.

"Yes, I did," Kat replied calmly.

"How did you figure it out?" May asked.

"It wasn't easy. After I was hurt, I started looking into SHIELD operations that had gone wrong and I discovered a pattern. It was subtle but, once I knew what I was looking for, the clues just kept adding up to Hydra. I wrote a report, submitted it to Maria and she was less than enthused."

"But….I don't understand!" Jemma said in a bewildered voice. "Why would she fire you over that? If we'd known about Hydra ahead of time, perhaps all of this unpleasantness could have been avoided!"

Kat nodded. "That's what I thought but not only did Maria not believe me, she was deeply offended by the idea that SHIELD could have double agents in it, especially since some of the agents I suggested might be Hydra were very well-regarded."

"Who did you suggest?" Fitz asked.

"Agent Grant Ward for one," Kat started, once again squeezing Grant's hand. She thought it prudent to leave out her suspicion of Agent May for now. There would be time for that later.

Grant looked at her in confusion and withdrew his hand. "How did you know that I was Hydra?"

"I didn't; it was an educated guess. I only thought you might be because of your relationship with John Garrett. Oddly enough, it was my naming him as a potential Hydra agent that really sent Maria through the roof." Kat said with satisfaction. Her next talk with Maria was going to be sweet. "But to be fair, I wasn't in the best mindset at the time, so Maria thought that I was seeing ghosts and causing trouble where there was none. And she wasn't the only one. Steve and Natasha didn't believe me either." She shrugged, "At least everyone was nice about it."

"Steve?" Phil asked incredulously. "You mean Captain America? And the Black Widow?"

Kat nodded, "Don't hold it against them, Phil. Like I said, I wasn't in the best place and it seemed like a far-fetched theory at best. Even I wasn't 100% certain. But, the next time I run into Maria Hill, I will have some choice words to say!"

That got a few laughs and the tension that had been present the entire meeting seemed to dissipate. Trip got up and said, "We're done here, right? I'm starving!" Both Kat and Phil nodded and everyone else got up. Trip patted Grant on the back and said, "Come on! You can make me a sandwich," as they both walked toward the kitchen. Kat noticed that Grant seemed a bit lighter and she had faith that Trip would be helpful to him. Fitz and Simmons left together. May left on her own while Kat and Phil both stood up together.

"I think that went well," Phil started but Kat noticed that Skye was still seated, looking at her expectantly.

"I'll come up to your office in a bit," Kat said to Phil. He looked over at Skye, nodded, and took off. Kat turned to Skye. "Yes?"


	16. Skye

Chapter 16: Skye

Kat sat down next to Skye. She was a bit puzzled because she thought everything had been at least somewhat settled but nevertheless asked, "Is there something you want to talk about?"

Skye sat for a minute without answering, then she blurted out, "You keep touching him! And he lets you, without even acting like it's a big deal!"

Kat was taken aback by Skye's outburst at first, especially since she appeared to be so close to tears, but then she berated herself for not seeing this coming. "Skye, there isn't anything of a romantic nature between Grant and me," she said gently. "Yes, I touch him a lot because, prior to this, the only touch he got was either violent or sexual. I wanted him to know that touch can be comforting and supportive, something people can do without wanting anything in return."

"I used to do that too but he always seemed uncomfortable with it, so I stopped. Why are you so different? He even took your hand!" Skye said accusingly.

"Skye, I told you before that my job allows me to have a different relationship with people. Grant and I know each other well enough now that he understands that not only am I not going to hurt him but he can take my hand without it meaning anything. He really needed support right then. Besides, the person who was uncomfortable with your touch was the old Grant, the one who had to be careful about how close he let people get. That's why he could sleep with May but barely talk honestly with you. One type of relationship he could handle easily, the other he couldn't. If it helps, I think he was more genuine with you than he was with anyone else, including Garrett," Kat replied.

Skye nodded thoughtfully but Kat could tell that she was still upset. "What is it, Skye? My touching Grant isn't really what's upsetting you, is it?"

Skye shook her head. When she spoke again, her voice was barely a whisper. "It's just that I said such horrible things to him. I told him that I would never understand why he did what he did and that if I knew the real him, I wouldn't like him. I even told him he was weak and that I hoped Garrett ordered him to walk into traffic. After that, how can he ever believe that I care about him? From what I saw and heard tonight, he has to be one of the strongest people I know but he won't ever believe that I think that, will he?" Skye asked miserably.

Kat's heart sank as she listened to Skye's recitation of what she had told Grant. She was certain that he would forgive Skye in a heartbeat. She'd found that he was quick to forgive others; it was only himself he had a hard time forgiving. Although Kat understood that Skye had been shocked and angry when she said those things, she sincerely wished they hadn't been because she suspected the damage might be severe. Grant wouldn't forget those words easily or soon.

"I think it will be hard for him but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. You really need to talk with Grant about everything that has happened."

"I keep trying," Skye said passionately, "but he won't let me. I don't know what to do anymore!"

Kat thought for a minute. "What if I told him that he needs to start training you again? Do you think that would make things easier for you two to talk?"

Skye nodded. "At the very least, he wouldn't be able to avoid me. Trip's been helping me train since Ward…left…but I can talk with him about letting Ward take over again. I'm sure he'd be fine with it. In fact, he'd probably love to get rid of me!" She smiled slightly. "I'm not the easiest person to train."

Kat laughed. "I'm sure you're not. Well, that's what we'll do then. I'll let Phil and Grant know; you talk with Trip. Should we plan on the two of you starting tomorrow morning?"

Skye nodded and then stood up to leave. "Kat, thanks. I wasn't sure at first that I wanted you on the Bus but now I'm glad you're here."


	17. Training

Chapter 17: Training

The next morning, Skye nervously walked into the cargo hold. She had no idea of how things would go or even how she wanted them to be. All she knew was that Grant Ward finally was forced to be around her and this time, he couldn't run away. Despite being early (anxiety does wonders for punctuality), Grant was waiting for her with no expression on his face.

Skye sighed. "Hey, Robot."

Grant looked startled but then smiled slightly. "Agent Skye," he acknowledged. "I talked with Trip about what you've been working on and it sounds like we need to get back to your relative strength training." While he was talking, he automatically started checking the wraps on Skye's hands. "Why don't you show me where you are right now?"

Skye started punching the bag, harder and with more focus than she had when Grant was still training her. He was impressed but also noticed that her form wasn't correct.

He waited until she stopped and then said, "You're still dropping your head. You need to focus on keeping it up. Your stance also could use some work."

Skye turned her face away from him and swallowed hard. It was almost like Hydra had never reared its head and things were just like they had been.

Grant's expression turned guarded as he observed her sad expression. "You don't have to do this with me, you know. Trip is a great SO and he can handle your…"

"No!" Skye interrupted and all of her pent-up frustration just erupted. "Don't you get it? I missed you! So much. I want _you_ to train me, Ward, but this time, I want it to be real. No more Robot. I want you to talk with me. Can you do that?"

Grant looked down. "I don't know. I hurt you so badly that I don't understand why you would even want to be around me, much less talk with me. When you told me that you hoped Garrett would order me to walk into traffic, I understood. I'm a monster. But wanting me to train you? To talk with you? That, I don't get."

"Oh, so it's ok for you to talk to and even get physical with Kat but I get nothing?" Skye asked angrily.

Grant looked back up, his expression utterly confused. "Get physical? What are you talking about? Kat has nothing to do with us!"

"But you talk with her. A lot. And yet when I want to talk, all you do is run away," Skye all but yelled. Her eyes filled with tears as she saw Grant's look of sorrow. "You said that your feelings for me were real but how can they be when you never want to be around me?" She stopped suddenly. "Or maybe your feelings have changed. Is that it?"

Grant shook his head. "Skye, my feelings for you haven't changed. It's just that Kat helped me realize that if I truly love you, I should want what's best for you. Instead of wanting something for myself the way Garrett would have, I want you to be happy and I don't think you could ever be happy with me. You hate me. And you should. I wasn't lying when I told you that I'm not a good man."

He stopped talking and looked at Skye who was staring at him with her mouth open. "I can't do this!" he said as he punched the bag and ran out of the cargo hold. Skye stood staring after him for a full minute before collecting herself and muttering, "That went well. And what do you know? It turns out he can run away."

Skye gave Ward an hour to calm down before she found him reading in his bunk. She knocked at his door before barging in and sitting on his bed. She had no intention of allowing him to get out of this talk. She stared at him steadily until he gave her his full attention (he'd tried to wait her out but she was having none of his avoidance) before speaking. "I guess you were right about your skeletons being different than mine," she said with a brief smile. "Nastier too."

He nodded. "You have no idea the things I've done. The things you already know about and what I mentioned in the meeting were just a taste. I'm weak, Skye, and I can never be the kind of man you want me to be."

"But I'm weak too, Grant!" He looked up at her sharply when she called him by his first name. "Do you want to know what I did the first night after Coulson rescued me from you? I spent the entire night crying and looking at the picture of you I sent to the police. Even after you kidnapped me, even after I discovered you were a murderer, I still cared about you. All I wanted in that moment was for things to be the way they were, with no Hydra and all of us being together on the Bus."

"I wanted that too," Grant said in a low voice without looking at Skye. "I wanted that so badly but I couldn't leave Garrett. I wish to God I had! But that doesn't make you weak, Skye. That just means you cared. That's what you do. It's one of the things that make you so great."

"But it was more than just that! Even as angry, hurt and scared as I was, in my mind, I still tried to find a way to bring you home! I wanted you to be controlled the way Mike Peterson was or find out that you were part of the Incentives program. I said I cared about all the people you killed but, when it came down to it, I just wanted you back! But when I found out that you were doing what you did out of your own choice? That was when I gave up on you! I didn't bother to wonder what made you so loyal to Garrett or question what you had gone through to get where you were. And that's not me, is it Grant? Instead of having compassion for someone I truly cared for, I took the easy way out and let anger take over. I let myself hate you and I shouldn't have done that."

Grant looked at Skye and saw that she was crying. "Hey," he said gently, taking her hand. "You have every right to hate me. I deserve that. No one is blaming you for it, least of all me!"

Skye yanked her hand away and cried harder. "But you _don't_ deserve that, Grant! Don't you see? Garrett brainwashed you. He took a physically and emotionally abused boy and abused him some more! He kept you from having healthy relationships and, when it looked like you might have some anyway, he ripped you away from us! He forced you to do things that hurt you and he didn't even care. _And we should have seen that!_ But we didn't. We were so comfortable letting you protect us that we let you take risks and punches and be controlled by Asgardian staffs and witches and we didn't question how it was affecting you. We didn't wonder what could possibly make someone so unemotional and so unwilling to take care of himself. We were weak because not only did we not take good care of you, Grant, but, in hating you, we also let you take full responsibility for it. And you shouldn't."

Grant looked stunned and remained silent as he and Skye just looked at each other. She stopped crying but didn't say a word. Finally, he said, "Kat's been saying a lot of those things too but it's hard to believe." He smiled a little when he noticed Skye's expression darken when he said Kat's name. "And there is nothing going on between us. You have to believe that. She's just a good friend and she would be the first to tell you that."

"She has and I do believe it. It's just hard not to get jealous when it seems like the two of you get along so well and you and I barely speak. So, can that change? Can you train me for real this time? Can we become at least good friends?"

Grant smiled and nodded. "But what are going to do about our weaknesses?"

Skye returned his smile and took his hand. "Maybe we can work on them together."


	18. May

Chapter 18: May

The day after his talk with Skye, Grant was surprised when May asked him if they could do some sparring together. "Nothing serious," she emphasized. "Just to make sure your skills haven't gotten too rusty."

"Of course," Grant said easily. Even though he remained expressionless, his internal anxiety rose with her request. The last time he and May had been alone together, they were fighting and he ended up with a fractured larynx. May was not someone who forgave easily and his sin was not only betrayal (which would have been bad enough) but also injuring the team, both physically and emotionally. He had to wonder if this was payback time.

For an hour, their workout was intense and silent. Both had shown up on time (Grant had been early), talked briefly about what they were going to work on, and then got down to it. They punched, kicked, parried, blocked, and generally sparred without words. Every so often there was a terse, "OK?" when one helped the other off the mat but nothing beyond that. When they broke for water, Grant thought he might scream from the tension. But he said nothing. This was her meeting and he owed her.

The two sat against the wall, breathing heavily and drinking water in sporadic bursts. There was a lot of space between them but not so much that they couldn't carry on a conversation. Grant reflected ruefully that the casual observer would never guess that the duo had ever been physically intimate or even colleagues. He sighed.

After about five minutes of silence in which Grant looked anywhere but at May, she turned her head slightly in his direction. "I read your file," she said shortly, her face an expressionless mask. "And I had a talk with Dr. Sevda."

Grant nodded but said nothing. He already knew that but doubted it would make any difference to her. May believed in actions, not words and certainly not intentions or emotions.

"You could have killed me at Providence."

"There was no reason to. You left."

"But you could have easily crossed me off before I left."

Grant shrugged and said nothing. Where was she going with this?

"I was such a threat before that you tried to neutralize me with sex," May halted for a moment and a micro-expression crossed her face. Grant glanced at her and suppressed his surprise. Was the Ice Queen actually _hurt_ by that? "But when you could have easily gotten rid of me for Hydra, you just let me go. Garrett never would have done that."

Again, Grant said nothing but this time his silence wasn't because he didn't know what to say. Instead, he was reflecting about the time he'd spent with her and considering how he'd actually felt then. Kat had done her work well and he finally realized that, despite what he thought at the time, he never could choose not to feel but instead just pushed his real feelings aside. But he didn't have to now. And he owed May the truth.

"You're right. I probably should have killed you because you are and were a danger to Hydra but I didn't want to hurt you. Not at Providence and not at Cybertek either." He finally looked over at her, trying to see if she understood what he was trying to say.

She paused. "You were holding back."

Grant nodded. "I didn't know what to do, so I just did what I do best: fight. But I didn't want to hurt you, not permanently. I didn't want to hurt Skye either." He smiled slightly. "I didn't know how to be on top, so I settled for always being on bottom."

May took a second to digest that. "You wanted to lose."

He shrugged. "Not exactly. I just didn't know what else to do. I figured you would take care of it, especially if I made you angry."

There was a long silence. Grant thought that maybe May was through talking, so he was surprised when she said, "After Bahrain, I didn't want to ever feel again. Thinking was hard too. Riding a desk was good because I didn't have to do either one; I just did what they asked." She paused again, "That's how you've lived your whole life, isn't it?"

"Pretty much," he admitted.

"The difference between us is that I had people to pull me back. You didn't."

"I thought I did. That's why I was loyal to Garrett."

She was silent, clearly thinking over what he had said. Watching her actually consider his point of view made Grant feel like maybe he should go for broke. Even after making that decision, he still surprised himself when he said, "Back when I couldn't talk and then during those months in prison, I had a lot of time to think and I realized that you were right. I wasn't being honest with myself but not in the way that you thought. I had sex with you partly because it was my mission but also because I enjoyed it and I don't mean just the physical part. It was nice to be with someone who was at least somewhat like me, someone who understood my life. You didn't expect me to talk or have expectations for how I should be. Our…whatever you want to call it…was, I don't know, pleasant." He saw May gave a hint of a smile, giving him the courage to continue. "I know that you said I didn't hurt you but I think I did, just not in the way you meant. You tried to give me something and I threw it back in your face. I'm sorry."

May twisted her entire body so she could look more directly at him but was quiet for a long time. Grant kept his gaze focused on the floor. "I'm sorry too," she finally said.

Grant looked up, surprised. "For what?"

"I'm sorry for the way SHIELD failed you and I'm sorry for not noticing that you needed help. I should have. What you did isn't ok but you had your reasons."

Grant, feeling overwhelmed, gave her a half smile but said nothing.

May got up and extended her hand to him. Once he was on his feet, she turned and started walking away. "For the record, I found it pleasant too," she said over her shoulder. She paused. "Same time tomorrow?"

Grant nodded, "Same time." He smiled to himself as she left. Things weren't perfect between them but at least they were moving in the right direction.


	19. Trip

Chapter 19: Trip

Ever since the confrontation with the group, Grant felt like things were better with almost everyone. He and Skye were having fun with their daily training. Although they hadn't touched on any serious topics since their heart-to-heart, their banter had returned. It almost felt like old times and Grant was more than grateful. He didn't know where things with Skye could go but at least they had a beginning.

He and May seemed to have grown a bit closer as well. While they still didn't talk much, their daily sparring practice seemed more uninhibited and less tense. May had even given him a few compliments and Grant found himself laughing at a few good moves she tried on him. He thought he'd even detected a smile or two from her since their conversation. Grant smiled to himself as he thought about that. Who would have ever thought that the Robot would have not one but two serious, emotionally-laden conversations?

Things were better with Fitz too. He and Grant regularly ate lunch together and even played poker. After Fitz confessed his plan to cheat by having Skye use the glasses to see Ward's cards, Grant offered to teach him everything he knew about poker so he'd never have to cheat again. Despite his superior IQ, Fitz didn't pick up the game easily, so the two of them were somewhat evenly matched and they enjoyed playing whenever they could. Both men felt like they were regaining the comradery they'd shared before. As a result, Fitz's health seemed to improve.

On his way back to his bunk one afternoon (although he still had to wear the bracelet, Phil had lifted the supervision restriction after the confrontation), Grant stopped when he saw Trip in the lounge reading. He went and took a seat across from him.

Trip looked up, surprised. "Hey."

Grant took a deep breath. "I wanted to thank you."

"Thank me? For what?"

"For having my back at the meeting and," his voice caught a little, "for taking care of the team when I didn't."

"Not a problem, man."

Grant waited for Trip to say more and, when he didn't, felt a surge of anger, one that he realized he'd felt quite often around the other man, even though Trip had always been respectful to him. Where was that coming from? He hesitated a moment more and then started to get up.

"You know," Trip said slowly, "I used to be jealous of you."

"Of me?" Grant asked incredulously. Trip nodded. "Why?"

"Garrett always used to talk about you, telling the rest of us all about your accomplishments and how we just didn't measure up to the great Grant Ward. After a while, it started being a joke. Whenever we'd do something good, like take out two agents at once, we'd tell each other, 'Well, Grant Ward can take out three' or if someone made a long distance shot, we'd say, 'Grant Ward can shoot even further.' I used to think Garrett was making up all that you could do just to egg us on until I looked up your record and saw how good you really were. And that's when I got jealous because here I was, the grandson of a Howling Commando, and you had me beat in every category."

Grant flushed and looked down. "Yeah, well, it came with a high price."

Trip nodded. "I know."

There was silence between them until Grant finally looked up. "Why don't you hate me? Everyone else does, or they used to, but you never seemed to. Why not?"

"After I found out that Garrett was the Clairvoyant, I started questioning everything. I realized how convincing he was, how a lot of us on the team were willing to do almost anything he asked just because he wanted us to. He was a charmer, man, and I think that's part of the problem for some around here. We were all just as fooled by him as you were but some of them don't want to admit it. It's easier to be mad at you than wondering just how far they would have gone."

Grant shook his head. "I wasn't fooled by Garrett. I always knew he was Hydra."

"You may have known who he was working for but you didn't know the man. He fooled you into thinking that you owed him loyalty and that what you were doing was for the greater good instead of realizing that the only person he ever cared about was himself."

Grant looked dangerous for a moment, then relaxed and slowly nodded. "You're right. I was fooled. I wish to God I hadn't been!" he said bitterly.

"But it's more than that for me. Like I said, I was jealous of you, kind of like you were that older brother who is better at everything. For a while, I wanted to be you. And then, when I heard more about your story, I truly got it."

"Got what?"

"My grandfather used to tell me stories about how it was back when they were fighting Nazis. He said that people now like to think everything we did to win was moral and good, the 'Greatest Generation' and all that. But he said that when you're fighting an enemy who doesn't play by the rules, you have to cut a few corners too. Once you do, what's right and wrong gets a bit blurred and that's when you can get into trouble. He said that you need people to keep you on the right path. And that's the thing, Ward. Without my family, I could have been, probably would have been, you. That's why I can't hate you."

Grant was surprised to find that he was near tears and he suddenly understood why he had been so angry at Trip. "Without my family, without Garrett, _I_ could have been _you_." He looked directly at Trip. "I would have liked that."

Trip smiled easily but Grant got a far-away look in his eyes. "When I was younger, one of my teachers told me that the name Ward literally meant guard. That's when I knew what I wanted to do with my life; I wanted to protect people. But then I discovered I couldn't protect anyone, not my little brother, not Buddy or FitzSimmons, not even Garrett. Every time I tried, they got hurt anyway. Maybe my name is a big joke, the universe's way of having a laugh at my expense."

Trip shook his head. "Your expectations are too high. Another thing my grandfather taught me and one I learned myself working at SHIELD is that there is no way that you can protect everyone. Even Captain America can't do that! So maybe just trying is worth something."

Grant reflected on that thought for a moment. "Maybe so," he said and got up to leave.

"Hey! One more thing."

Grant looked wary. "What?"

"I want in on your poker games with Fitz. I could destroy you two!"

Grant smiled. "You could try," he said as he walked away.


	20. Hydra RevealedAgain

**I'm going to warn you that the next few chapters are going to be pretty Kat-centric. In order to set up where this is going and continue with Grant's redemption, they have to be. So, hang in there; I'm going somewhere with it, I promise.**

**Also, I have been rewatching AoS the last few days and I was amazed by how much they were playing the long game. As early as "Eye-Spy," they had Ward talking about how difficult it had to be for one of Phil's people to betray him and I think the phrase "second chance" was used no less than 3 times by different characters. Good news for our fella!**

Chapter 20: Hydra Revealed…Again

A few days after the confrontation, Phil and Kat were in his office discussing things.

"You know, I wouldn't have believed it but the group therapy really helped! The team actually seems somewhat settled now," Phil said.

Kat shook her head, smiling. "Always the tone of surprise with you, Phil. Some things never change, huh? Psychology may be a "soft" science but that doesn't mean it isn't effective."

Phil just laughed. "How's Jemma?"

"Good," Kat replied. "She finally let me help with her PTSD. She knows that it's a process and it will take a while for the symptoms to completely go away but she has started seeing some improvement."

"Fitz also seems to be doing better. I would have never thought it possible but I think Ward spending time with him has really helped," Phil said.

Kat nodded. "I told you they needed emotional healing. How's Skye? She won't talk to me much."

"Oh?"

"She knows better but I think she's jealous of all the time Grant and I spend together and how relaxed he is with me. She still isn't certain that nothing is going on between us. So, I have no idea of how her training is going and I have yet to ask him much about it."

"From what I can tell, it seems to be going smoothly. Neither of them has talked with me much about it either. Do you think I should ask?"

"Not unless you have a reason."

Suddenly May's voice came over the intercom. "Phil! You need to get to Command ASAP. We have a Hydra alert!"

"Have the team meet me there!" Phil shouted as both he and Kat raced out of the room.

When they reached Command, the monitors were displaying images of various Hydra agents shooting guards and attacking a large compound.

"Where is this?" Phil asked.

Skye punched a few keys on her computer. "I think they're in Norway. I have no idea…" her voice trailed off as an image of Ian Quinn and another good-looking dark-haired man came out of the house with material in their hands and grins of triumph on their faces.

"Ahh….our good friend Ian Quinn," Phil said grimly. "Who's that with him?" Phil looked at the screen closely, a confused look on his face. "Wait. Kat, is that who I think it is?" He looked over at Kat who looked like she was about to be sick. "Is that Blake?"

"It can't be," she said faintly, white to the lips. The whole team looked at her with concern and Grant put out his hand to steady her.

"Are you all right?" he asked. She nodded, so he looked back at the screen. "Who is Blake?"

"My husband, Blake Cordis," Kat said. "He's supposed to be dead."

"Well, given that there are two of us around the table who are also supposed to be dead but aren't, apparently that's going around," Phil said dryly.

Kat smiled slightly, then gasped out, "I think I'm going to be sick!" She turned and ran for the bathroom. After she finished emptying her stomach, she leaned back against the door and willed her body to calm down. She then slowly stood up and returned to Command where the monitors were still showing images of the Norwegian compound.

Phil looked up when she returned. "Kat, it's confirmed. We ran facial recognition and the man with Ian Quinn is indeed Blake. I think it's time that you told us what happened that weekend at your parent's house so we can figure this out."

"OK. But I think I'm going to need to be sitting down for this," she said and everyone reconvened in the lounge. Phil took a seat and looked expectantly at Kat.

"I'm not sure where to start," Kat said, then stopped, uncertain of how to continue.

"Who is Blake and how did you meet him?" Skye asked.

"That's right, you don't know. I keep forgetting how new you are to SHIELD," Kat said. "Blake was a SHIELD operative, like Grant and May. One of the best. I met him through my parents who were high level SHIELD agents. That's how I met a lot of people," Kat said glancing at Phil and Tripp. They nodded. "After all, SHIELD is, or at least it was, a pretty small organization."

"It still is," Phil said a bit ruefully and Kat gave him a ghost of a smile.

"Blake and I started dating and I fell in love with him. I thought he was in love with me too but now I'm wondering if that was true. If he's Hydra, and it looks like he is, maybe it was all a lie." Kat's voice trailed off.

"You might have been his assignment but that doesn't mean that there weren't parts that were real," Grant said. "That happens," he said looking directly at Skye, who gave him a half smile.

Kat also smiled slightly. "You're right but it's hard to take in. I used to tell people all about my whirlwind romance with Blake but now I'm thinking that he swept me off my feet for reasons other than love." She again looked sick.

"If that's true, why were you his assignment?" May asked. "What would Hydra want with you?"

"I was PsyOps, a division I imagine Hydra wanted to contain. If anyone in SHIELD was going to figure out the Hydra infiltration, it would have been us and I was recruited pretty hard. I can't know for certain but I think Hydra was trying to bring me into their organization, especially after what happened. But, I imagine the real reason I was targeted was…" Once again, her voice trailed off.

"Your parents," Phil said firmly. Kat nodded and looked down.

"Who are your parents?" Fitz asked.

"Man, Kat's parents were the bomb!" Tripp said enthusiastically. "They knew everyone, from Fury on down. I don't know how high they went in SHIELD but rumor had it that no major decision or operation went down without their knowledge."

Phil nodded. "If I were Hydra and I wanted to incapacitate SHIELD, they were two people I'd want out of the way. Hydra tried to assassinate Fury, so it makes sense they'd try to kill Jatan and Anna too."

"But I don't understand. Where does Blake come in?" Jemma asked.

"Blake and I had been married for a year when…" Kat stopped again, swallowed hard and continued, "we found out I was pregnant." She avoided looking at the group so that she could continue but she could imagine their shocked faces. "That weekend, we went to my parents' compound so we could tell them the good news and plan for the future. We told them on Friday night and then spent all day Saturday celebrating and talking about the baby." Kat's voice caught and she stopped talking.

Grant leaned over and took her hand. It was the unexpected nature of the gesture that startled her enough out of her misery to continue her narrative. She could remember it all like it was yesterday.


	21. The Incident

**Yes, this chapter is all Kat. However, pay attention to it because Grant is certainly going to.**

Chapter 21: The Incident

Kat was in bed early because she was so exhausted, probably due to the pregnancy. She could still hear her parents and Blake talking and laughing when she laid down and she smiled to herself. The weekend had been so perfect! There were times when Blake and her parents didn't seem to get along well, so she was grateful that all had gone smoothly on this visit. Maybe the baby would bring them closer together as a family. Kat drifted off to sleep on a cloud of happy family thoughts.

Suddenly, she jerked awake, her heart beating rapidly. She automatically looked over at the other side of the bed and there was Blake, sleeping soundly. The clock read 2:12 am, so she'd been asleep for hours. All was quiet in the house but Kat knew something had woken her out of a sound sleep, so she listened harder. Then a scream, her mother's scream, tore through the night and Kat started shaking Blake.

"Blake! Blake! Wake up! Something is wrong!" She was practically screaming in his face yet he was slow to stir. Was he drugged? Usually the slightest noise woke him. As he finally opened his eyes, the door to their room burst open and three masked and armed people ran in.

Kat screamed as one of the people grabbed her and roughly pulled her from the bed. She tried to struggle but this man (as strong and hard as he was, it had to be a man) held her tightly. If she survived this night, she would have bruises. She looked over at Blake and saw that he too was struggling with his captors but seemed to be losing the fight.

The intruders pulled both Kat and Blake into the hallway where she could more clearly hear the frightening noises coming from her parent's room. She could make out furniture falling, people yelling, mysterious thumps, the occasional yelled curse and, disturbingly, gunfire. Kat was terrified. She looked at Blake being dragged ahead of her and her heart sank. Until that moment, she hadn't realized just how much she counted on him being able to get out of any situation.

"Blake!" she screamed in desperation as the noise from her parent's room abruptly stopped after a volley of gunfire.

"Kat!" he yelled back, trying to turn his head towards her. "Don't worry!"

Don't worry? Was he insane? Yet, right after he'd said that, the man dragging her down the hall turned sharply and shoved her into the guest bathroom. She fell back and hit the ground just as he slammed the door and turned the lock. Kat jumped to her feet and jerked the door as hard as she could. Nothing. She listened for a moment and realized that the intruders must have taken Blake into her parent's study. She was being left alone.

Despite her usual analytic bent, Kat didn't stop to wonder why, out of the entire family, she was the only one not being harmed. Instead, she quickly lifted the window, climbed out of it and landed in the flower bed. Seeing no one (not even cars, she realized later), she raced around to the back of the house to one of several hidden doors her parents had built into the house. Moving as stealthily as she could, Kat inched her way to her parents' room which was now as silent as death. She carefully opened the door.

The sight that met her made her fall to her knees. Her parents were lying on the floor, her father's body face up in front of their closet (there were weapons and an escape hatch in there) and her mother's body face down closer to the window. It looked to Kat like Jatan had been shot first and Anna had tried to crawl to him and was shot in the head while doing so. She slowly crept toward their bodies, tears running down her face. She confirmed that they both were dead and then looked around the room.

Anna and Jatan had put up a good fight. Furniture was knocked over, there was blood on the walls and there were even two other bodies in the room. Kat had no desire to find out if they were dead but her SHIELD training kicked in and she knew she had to at least discover if they were a continued threat to her. The intruders were dead and she was shocked to realize that she was glad. No one should kill her parents and not pay for it! Kat took their weapons and put them in her parents' wall safe. Later, she berated herself for not tearing off their masks to see what the intruders looked like or putting their weapons in a safer place (she should have realized that her parents' codes were compromised) but stress doesn't always allow for clear thinking.

She inched out of her parents' room and did some deep breathing exercises to calm herself. As far as she knew, Blake was still alive and needed her help. She ran back into her room to grab her personal weapons (a gun and a knife in an ankle sheath) and made her way quietly to the study. She could hear the sound of men's voices and of things being broken. Clearly the intruders knew that her parents had several safes in there and were trying to find them. Kat had never been told what the safes contained but it was a good bet that there were SHIELD secrets in them. These intruders were well-informed.

She quickly glanced around the corner into the study and counted five intruders, two of whom were holding a still struggling Blake. One had found a safe and was looking through it. The other two were still searching for the other safes. Blake looked up, met Kat's eyes, and then really started fighting. "No!" he howled. The three searching intruders stopped what they were doing, looked around and saw Kat. Although Kat had never been in combat (she was PsyOps for heaven's sake!) and she certainly had never fired her gun at a person, she knew it was now or never and she fired. Two of her shots hid the intruders and Kat felt a moment's satisfaction. Apparently she was a good shot! Her satisfaction was short-lived however when she felt two rounds hit her stomach.

Kat fell to the ground and heard Blake yelling. One of the intruders came over to check on her and she found the strength to grab her knife and slice him across the leg. The man grunted with pain. Kat felt herself losing consciousness but, in the distance, she heard the faint sound of sirens. She smiled weakly as she thought, "The cavalry is coming!" But she stopped smiling when she heard Blake's yells stop and saw his body crumple to the ground. Then she blacked out.


	22. Figuring It Out

Chapter 22: Figuring It Out

Kat was shaking from the tension of holding in her tears while she told her story. Despite her best efforts, a single tear ran down her face and she grasped Grant's hand firmly while trying to breathe deeply.

Phil gently put his hand on her shoulder. "They were heroes," he said.

Kat nodded. "They were but some days I find that a cold comfort. I miss them so much! You have no idea of how unworthy I felt after that weekend. Daughter of two SHIELD legends and wife to a hero yet I was the only one who survived. Because of course that's what I thought, that I was the lone survivor. We all did. Since the last thing I saw was Blake collapsing, I assumed they'd killed him, just like they did my parents."

"Didn't they find his body?" Skye asked.

Kat shook her head and let go of Grant's hand. "When I woke up in the hospital, they told me that when SHIELD got there, they couldn't find any bodies in the house other than my parents. There wasn't any blood, fingerprints or anything else that could tell us who they were or what they wanted. They were one hell of a clean-up crew! It was like they were ghosts. My parents managed to hit their panic button, so SHIELD got to the compound pretty quickly. Everyone assumed that the intruders were going to take my parents' bodies too but just didn't have time. No one ever suggested that Blake was alive; we all thought he was dead."

"And your injury?" Jemma asked gently.

Kat knew what she was asking. "My stomach wound wasn't as bad as Skye's. The bullet hit my external iliac artery and I was lucky to get medical assistance quickly. My recovery wasn't horrible or even very long but I did miscarry."

There was dead silence. Then Grant asked, "Was what happened to you the reason you went looking for Hydra?"

Kat shook her head. "No, I didn't even think about Hydra at first. All I knew is that there was a group out there that wanted to hurt SHIELD and I needed to find out who they were. To make them pay. It was only after I kept searching for similar incidents that I realized it was Hydra and that they were embedded within SHIELD."

"After what Hydra took from you, why did you help me?" Grant practically whispered.

"I helped you because you weren't truly Hydra and you had good reasons for doing what you did. I helped you because I believe in second chances and I think that you will be essential in taking down Hydra once and for all," Kat replied.

"Do you believe in second chances for Blake?" May asked bluntly.

Kat's face hardened. "I don't know," she replied. Then her face softened a little, "I guess it will depend on what he has to say for himself."

Phil took Kat's hand and squeezed it. "Which is what we need to find out. Thank you for telling us. I know it was hard." His voice turned brisk. "But now we have work to do. We need to figure out what Blake and Quinn were doing in Norway and how to stop them."

After the meeting in the lounge broke up, Kat went directly to her bunk. She needed some time alone to process all she had learned and she was exhausted. Deep emotion is always draining. Kat sat there and tried to piece together what her life had actually been like. She knew from Piaget's work that memory is reconstructive and now it was time to reconstruct her own. Who was Blake really and what had been his goal? What was his goal now?

After a few hours alone, Kat heard a tentative knock on her door. She got up to open the door expecting to see Phil or perhaps Trip, so she was surprised when she saw Grant standing uncertainly in the hallway.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

Kat nodded, backing up so he could enter and going to sit down on her bed, hugging her knees to her chest. Grant closed the door and sat on her bed against the wall.

"How are you?"

She smiled briefly, a mere quirk of her lips upward. "As well as can be expected, I guess."

He nodded but said nothing. He looked sad.

She sighed. "It's just that I feel so stupid! Looking back, there were a million signs that I should have seen. The way we met, the single-minded way he pursued me, how perfect he was, the unease my parents felt towards him and even a thousand things that weekend! He was so accommodating and I thought it was a sign of good things to come! But no, it was a harbinger of the evil things that happened. The difficulty I had in waking him, his fake struggle against the intruders, the way he alerted them to my presence. It was all planned and I had no idea. Some PsyOps agent I turned out to be," she said bitterly.

Grant shook his head. "I don't think it was that simple, Kat. In listening to your story, one thing really struck me: your pregnancy. That can't have been in Hydra's plan! Why would it be? I think what happened is that you were Blake's mission but then he fell in love with you for real. As someone wise once told me, you can't choose to feel." Both Kat and Grant smirked a bit at that. "Blake may have thought he could keep his feelings separate but, in the end, he couldn't. Just like Skye was for me, you were the one variable he couldn't control and so you got pregnant."

"But my pregnancy didn't change his plans in any way."

"I think maybe it did. It sounds like he took every opportunity to keep you safe. They locked you in a bathroom to get you out of the way. When Blake saw you in a dangerous position, he lost it. I doubt they would have hurt you had you not started shooting first. And I also doubt that the original plan was for them to shoot Blake. My guess is they had to after he saw you get shot. From what I know of Hydra, I imagine the plan called for him to be wounded but left alive so he could keep his cover with you. Then he could have kept tabs on you and gotten the rest of the information from the safes. But when it was clear that he was emotionally compromised, they couldn't take the chance of leaving him behind, so they took him."

Kat nodded thoughtfully. It sounded logical and had the added bonus of not making her feel as stupid, guilty or played. If Blake truly had feelings for her, then at least some of it had been real and she wasn't as responsible for her parents' deaths.

She looked up at him. "Thank you. This makes me feel better and I truly appreciate it." She hesitated a moment and then continued, "But there's something bothering you, isn't there?"

He nodded. "I know you said earlier that I deserved a second chance because I wasn't truly Hydra and had good reasons for doing what I did." Grant abruptly stopped talking and looked confused.

Kat nodded but said nothing. He would get to the point when he was ready.

"I guess I'm confused. Doesn't everyone have good reasons for doing what they do? What if John wasn't truly Hydra either? He was just trying to save his life and he was angry with SHIELD because he thought they left him to die. And he was right, they did. SHIELD did the same thing to Fitz and me. There was no extraction plan for that mission and if the team hadn't come to get us, we'd probably both be dead."

"Grant…"

"And what about Blake? What do you even know about his background? What if he had a tough childhood and joined Hydra because they became his family and he thought they had some good ideas about how to make people safe? What if he had good reasons for doing what he did? Where do you draw the line, Kat? How do you decide who is worth a second chance and who isn't?"

Kat stared at him for a moment thinking over what he had said and examining him closely. Grant seemed on the verge of tears. Finally she said, "You make some good points. And I get it. Now that it's personal for me, you're worried that I'm going to change my mind about you or put you into a box. You think I'm going to be like a racist who has one black friend because that person is 'different.' Instead of seeing you for who you truly are, you're afraid I'm helping you because you're saying all the right things or because I need you to be the one good Hydra agent so I can prove I'm not biased."

Grant looked down and said nothing.

"You still don't understand, do you?" Grant looked up at Kat in surprise. "Grant, you _are_ different and that is true in so many ways," she said passionately. "For one thing, you never actively decided to be Hydra. You were forced into the life; you never went to them on your own. That's a gigantic difference. And then there is your lack of responsibility for the big picture: you were just following orders. While that is not necessarily an excuse, the reality is that you never led people anywhere or made the big decisions. You were a _sleeper agent_, which meant that you had minimal contact with Hydra planning. And then there is the fact that all your kills were collateral damage. I know that Skye calling you a serial killer really messed with your head but she was wrong. Killing is part of being an operative, so it was inevitable. All of you – Coulson, May, Trip and I could throw in Steve, Natasha and Clint too – have killed people as part of the job. The difference rests in _why_ you kill and from what I can tell, you only killed when necessary. Whenever possible, you only wounded and that makes you different. Very different. John Garrett never cared about who he hurt and you do."

Grant still looked a bit skeptical, so Kat kept going. "But you're right in that SHIELD has been a bit hypocritical and self-righteous. We haven't always done right by our agents, we can be overconfident jackasses who think we know better and we haven't given much thought as to the reasons our enemies fight us. And we haven't been overly compassionate to those we fight, Hydra included. SHIELD hasn't been perfect but maybe, with Phil in charge, things will change."

Grant nodded and sighed. "What about Blake? How much compassion are you going to give him?"

Kat smiled a bit. "That, I don't know yet but I have a feeling I'm going to find out real soon. Maybe you can help me with that."

Grant smiled back. "Maybe I can," he said as he started to leave.

"Can I give you a word of advice?" Kat asked.

"Don't you always?"

"Please tell Skye why you came into my room and how you're feeling. Otherwise training may be awkward tomorrow."

Grant nodded and laughed a little as he left the room.


	23. An Uncomfortable Talk

Chapter 23: An Uncomfortable Talk

Grant did decide to go talk with Skye. As far as he was concerned, it needed to be sooner rather than later. A lot had gone on in the past several days and he needed the chance to see where she was with everything. He knocked on her door and was immediately granted entry. She was, of course, working on her computer.

Grant sat down on the end of the bed. "Taking a break from working on Quinn?"

She looked up from the screen. "Yeah. Everything kind of starts to blur together after a while. AC insisted I relax and start fresh in the morning."

Grant nodded but said nothing. Now that he was here, he had no idea of what he wanted to say.

Skye, recognizing his attempt to connect, shut down her computer and put it under her bunk. Then, she sat cross-legged on the bed, looking at him. "So, how is Kat? Finding out that your dead husband betrayed you and is actually alive has to be messing with her head."

He shrugged. "She's about as good as you might expect. I went to her bunk to see if I could help."

Skye leaned forward and took his hand. "That was nice of you."

Grant shrugged again and looked at the floor.

"OK," Skye said briskly, letting go of his hand. "What else is going on? You have to talk with me, Grant. Remember, you promised no more Robot."

Grant sighed and changed his focus to the wall. "Ever since I was 15 years old, I knew what to think, what to do, and what my future was going to be but now everything has changed. I thought Garrett saved me but he turned out to be just as abusive as my real father. He taught me a lot of things and I'm realizing that many of those things were wrong. But he wasn't wrong about everything. So now I don't know what to think."

Skye looked at Grant carefully and saw that he was barely holding on. What must it be like to learn that almost everything you thought you knew was wrong? "What was he right about?" she asked in a neutral tone.

"Relationships. Garrett always told me that caring for people made you weak and he was right. It does."

"What? How can you say that?"

"Kat is in there devastated because her love for Blake led to her parents' death. I'm pretty certain that Blake screwed up his mission because he loved her. Mike Peterson and some of the other super soldiers allowed themselves to be used so that the people they loved weren't hurt. I did things I didn't want to do because I cared for Garrett." He looked over at Skye. "You gave Hydra information you shouldn't have because you didn't want me to die. See? Weak."

Skye's mouth fell open. She'd had no idea of how screwed up Grant's thought processes truly were. She leaned forward, trying to catch his eye. "You're looking at it all wrong, Grant. People's relationships, healthy relationships that is, are what make us strong. Our love for others is what keeps us going, makes us happy, helps us grow. AC is alive because Fury couldn't let him die. Mike's love for Ace is what helped him keep his moral center and survive. You were at your best when you were with us because you cared. And I don't regret my decision to keep you alive. My feelings for you are what gave me the strength to make the hard call. I would do it again in a heartbeat because it gave you a chance to come back to us."

There was a long silence as Grant mulled over what she had said. Skye watched him think, trying desperately to keep her anxiety in check. He had to believe her or they might just be back to square one. "Yeah, ok," he said finally. "I think that's what both May and Trip were trying to tell me too. And of course Kat has been saying that forever. It's just hard to wrap my head around the idea that emotions aren't just good ways to get you killed."

"Wow. Hydra really did a number on your head, didn't they?" Skye asked, leaning back against the bed.

Grant turned his body so he was directly facing her. "That right there is part of the problem, Skye," he said with passion. "It wasn't just Hydra that taught me that; SHIELD did too. Look at May and Trip. They don't wear their emotions on their sleeves either."

Skye opened her mouth to say something but Grant kept going, "You all keep telling me how horrible Hydra is but SHIELD is just as bad. The serial killer thing you called me on? I've killed way more people for SHIELD than I ever did for Hydra but that didn't seem to bother you. Remember how you were so angry at me for playing you? I've betrayed lots of people for SHIELD too. Everyone kept complimenting me for getting the best espionage scores since Romanoff but they were furious when those skills were used in ways they didn't like."

Skye was taken aback. She realized that he was making some good points but she didn't know enough about SHIELD or Hydra to contradict or explain them. She also needed more time to think about what he said but she realized that he was waiting for a reply. "Where is all this coming from? I thought things were going better. Did Kat say something negative about SHIELD?"

Grant sighed. "Not really. It's just that this Blake guy is another sleeper agent, like I was. Everyone is so ready to throw him to the wolves and I started wondering about my situation. Whatever you want to say about Garrett, when I was following his orders, at least I knew who I was and where I stood. Now right and wrong aren't as simple and I have no idea of who I am or even what I should do any more. One day everyone on the team liked me but when they discovered I wasn't the person they thought I was, the next day they hated me. Now they're starting to like me again but I'm still the same person, Skye. What happens if I screw up or express an opinion they don't like?"

"I don't think you are the same person anymore. You've been through too much to go back. We're even calling you by a different name!" she said smiling, trying to get him to smile back. When he didn't, she got serious again. "I don't have all the answers and I can't speak for anyone else but here is what I know. If you screw up or express an opinion I don't like, I'm not going to be quiet about it. You will definitely hear from me but I won't shut you out or give up on you. We'll talk about it and try to figure things out. That's what people in healthy relationships do."

Grant leaned back and raised his eyebrows. "We're in a relationship?"

Skye smiled a little. "Friends, trainee/SO, teammates, maybe….more….but yes, we're definitely relationshipping."

Grant chuckled. "Relationshipping? You just made that up."

"Maybe I did," Skye said loftily. "But you have to admit that it fits."

"That it does," he said as he stood up to go. "Goodnight, Skye."


	24. A New Mission

Chapter 24: A New Mission

"OK. Here is what we know," Phil said to the team as they were gathered around the holo-table. "Quinn, Blake and some other Hydra operatives stormed this compound in Norway and left with what looked to be some kind of serum. From there, they went to Quinn's place in Malta which is undoubtedly where he has the gravitonium stashed."

"Why would they return to Malta? Wasn't that place compromised when you took the gravitonium the first time," Trip asked.

"I don't know for certain but I imagine Quinn wanted to go back there because he had a place to store the gravitonium and because he is free from government interference there. Since SHIELD is still considered a rogue agency, I'm sure he believes that there is no way we would try to confront him in a place where we have no jurisdiction," Phil explained.

"In other words," May said in a monotone, "he feels safe there."

Phil nodded.

"Good," Kat said. "When people feel safe, they make mistakes. Do we have any idea of what the serum is?"

"Skye's been trying to find out information on it. Anything?" Phil asked.

Skye shook her head. "There has been chatter about it on certain channels but no one seems to know much. People have been making wild guesses but, other than a few words that keep cropping up, we're in the dark."

"What few words?" Phil asked.

"Asgardian, obedience, chromosome, sound," Skye answered. She looked up at the others. "I've written several programs to try and link the words into some sort of coherent explanation but haven't gotten any results. So, I have no clue how those words could fit together."

There was silence as almost everyone looked confused as they mulled over possibilities. "Well," Phil started, "we'll just have to keep…."

"What kind of work was going on in the Norwegian compound?" Grant asked.

Everyone looked at him in surprise. Grant had yet to speak up about an op since he returned to the Bus.

"The work they were doing there was classified but our best guess is that they were researching neuromuscular abnormalities in men," Jemma said.

Grant nodded and looked down.

"Grant?" Phil asked. "Do you have a guess?"

"Loralei," he answered in a deadened tone. "It sounds like they now have a serum that replicates the kind of vocal control she has over men." The brief silence that settled over the group could best be described as dismayed.

"Of course!" Jemma exclaimed looking excitedly at Fitz. "If they reverse-engineered prions to control neuromuscular movement and then tied them to sound waves, theoretically they could force people to do things solely by oral command. And if the prions were ones that specifically targeted the Y chromosome, such a serum would only affect men! Agent Ward, you're a genius!" she said looking directly at him and smiling.

Grant barely nodded and did not return her smile. This whole situation was bringing back a flood of memories he'd rather not revisit.

"But why target only men?" Fitz asked speculatively. "They'd control a much larger group of people if they included everyone."

Jemma looked down for a moment and then looked back up with that familiar "I've got it!" smile on her face. "Because they're using the SRY gene as a way to turn on the genes that make muscle cells!"

"And the SRY gene is only active in men!" FitzSimmons finished together.

"If you're right about what the serum does, then man, the potential for disaster is huge!" Trip said, shaking his head in alarm. "They could give that serum to any number of men who would have to do whatever someone tells them to do."

"If the serum works the way Loralei did, then the men won't even care about what they do. Following orders will be the most important thing in their lives, so they'll do whatever they're told regardless of the cost," Grant said, still in that deadened tone.

The silence that followed his statement was deep as everyone considered the implications of it, not only for future armies but for Grant himself. Kat realized that she and Skye weren't the only ones looking at him with concern.

"You ok, mate?" Fitz asked him.

Grant just nodded.

"So," Phil said when the silence stretched out uncomfortably, "it looks like we have two missions. We have to retrieve both the serum and the gravitonium and we also have to capture Ian Quinn and Agent Cordis. I know that's a lot to ask of all of you but I think you understand the stakes. I'm going to look into getting additional help. What I want from each of you are workable plans for how we can do this." He looked around the table, met everyone's eyes and waited until they nodded. "OK then. Meeting adjourned." He and May turned and left the room, presumably to conference privately.

Kat stepped back and waited to see how the rest of the team would respond to Grant who was clearly in distress.

"That was some first-rate thinking, man!" Trip said, putting his hand on Grant's shoulder. "Thanks to you, we know what we're up against." Grant gave a single nod in response. "When you get a minute, why don't the two of us sit down and figure out a plan for going in? I don't know about you but after being on this Bus for weeks, I'm ready for some action!" Grant nodded again. "I'll catch you later," Trip said and left the room.

"Good work, Agent Ward," Jemma said brightly and quickly left the room muttering to herself about anti-serums.

"Ward," Fitz said. "You weren't the only one who was under Loralei's spell. I was too, remember?"

"Yeah but you didn't try to kill Lady Sif and May. That was all me," Grant said bitterly.

"Nobody's blaming you for that," Fitz argued, surreptitiously shooting Skye a worried glance. "Besides, this time we know what we're up against and we'll be better prepared."

"Yeah," Grant sighed. "We'll do better this time," he said tiredly.

"Cheer up, mate! Umm…I'd better go see what I can do to help Jemma," Fitz said nervously and hurried out of the room.

Kat stepped back even further and leaned against a wall in the darkened part of the room. She didn't know if Skye and Grant even realized she was still there. She didn't want to interrupt but she also wanted to be nearby if they needed her.

Skye leaned forward to catch Grant's eye. "I guess this is all hitting a little too close to home for you, huh?" she said gently.

He looked at Skye and smiled slightly. "I think you could say that Loralei is not one of my favorite memories."

"According to Lady Sif, Loralei enslaved tons of men, including some of Asgard's best warriors. So you weren't the only man to fall under her spell. Nothing you did while under her control was your fault," Skye said.

"But what I did later was," he answered angrily.

"Grant," Skye said taking his hand and making him look at her. "Yes, you screwed up. But you're trying to change and do things differently now. And you can't do that if you refuse to forgive yourself and move forward. I'm not saying you should forget what you did or stop trying to make up for it but you beating yourself up at every opportunity isn't doing anyone any good."

Grant looked down and said nothing.

Skye gently took his face in her hands and kissed him on the lips. "Just think about it, ok?" Then she let go of him and left.

Grant turned his head to follow her exit saying, "And do you agree with that assessment, Kat?"

Kat smirked a bit. She should have known that Grant would be completely aware of his surroundings. She walked forward and leaned against the holo-table. "Do you really need to ask? You know that I do. And, not for nothing Grant, but I hope you noticed that almost every member of your team took the time to let you know how they feel about you. Maybe it's time you got past the guilt."


	25. Negotiations

Chapter 25: Negotiations

After being welcomed into the Malta compound, Kat and Grant had been ushered into Ian Quinn's sitting room and invited to make themselves at home. Although there was food and drinks available, neither did anything other than sit down on the couch. If Skye had been with them, she would have told them that it was the same couch she had been sitting on seconds before she jumped out of the window and into the pool.

Kat was dressed in black pants, a black top and black boots, similar to what May usually wore. Grant grinned at her, "Nice outfit."

"Thanks," she responded with a sly smile. "I call it my Kat suit."

Grant laughed out loud and scooted closer to Kat on the couch. "You seem like you're in a good mood," he said in a low, seductive tone.

Kat reached out and stroked his face gently. "We made it, Ward. We don't have to hide anymore."

Grant took her hand and kissed her palm, meeting her eyes as he did so.

Just then, the door to the study opened and Ian Quinn and Blake Cordis entered. Blake immediately frowned.

"Watch it!" he said to Grant sharply. "That's my wife you're touching."

Kat smiled at Grant and then slowly turned her head to smile lazily at Blake. "I think you meant widow, didn't you? Everyone thinks you're dead."

Blake seemed to relax. "Clearly _you_ didn't. I should have known you would figure it out." He paused and smiled directly at her. "In any event, since we're both alive, we're still married."

Kat raised her eyebrows and started to say something when Quinn quickly interjected, "Well, all of this is very interesting, but we have business to discuss." He turned to address Grant. "We, of course, were delighted to hear that you had escaped, Ward, not the least of which is because you have the connections to find some buyers for some of the…umm…products we've acquired."

Grant leaned forward and nodded, "I already have several interested parties lined up, ready to do business. However, Kat and I are going to have to inspect the merchandise before we agree to anything."

"We'll also need a demonstration of both the products' capabilities as well as the ability to control them," Kat said with another smile at Blake.

He frowned. "What do you mean control?"

"Without the ability to control their power, to stop them, the merchandise would be worthless because they might have to be abandoned. I would have thought that obvious," she replied in a patronizing tone. "Please don't tell me that you haven't looked into that. After all, true power lies in the ability to turn something on _and_ off. Otherwise you can lose control quickly."

Blake gave Kat a sharp look which she returned with an innocent expression. "I never imagined that our first meeting would go like this. You seem to have changed a bit," he said in an accusing tone.

"Have I?" Kat replied tilting her head to the side and looking up at him with a little smile on her lips. "Maybe neither of us was who the other thought we were."

Quinn looked at Kat, then at Blake and hurriedly said, "We are, of course, prepared to offer a demonstration of both the potential and the harnessing of the products. My people are in the process of setting it up as we speak but it won't be ready until this afternoon. I've already put in an order for lunch if you would care to join us."

"That would be lovely. Thank you." Kat paused. "Just out of curiosity, how did you come up with the idea to create the voice control serum? Hmm….that sounds boring. We need a better name. Sales are all about marketing." She looked thoughtful, then snapped her fingers. "I've got it! How about the Loralei Liquid? It's both memorable and alliterative."

Blake shook his head, giving her an amused smile. "Unlike SHIELD, we immediately realized the potential such a weapon could have. Rooster, the guy with Loralei before Ward took off with her, was very helpful in telling us how her voice affected him, so we got some of our scientists to work on the problem and _voila_!"

"Rooster," Grant chuckled. "I always thought that was such a stupid name."

"Maybe he isn't lucky enough to have someone like me around to think of a better one," Kat said as she put her hand on the upper part of Grant's thigh. "I don't know, babe. What if we called you The Warden? I certainly wouldn't mind you keeping me in line," she said teasingly.

Grant gave her a wicked smile while Blake's frown returned. Quinn was looking increasingly uncomfortable.

Grant turned back to look at Quinn. "The last time I saw you, you and Raina were leaving together. Is she here too? I can hardly imagine her wanting to sell the gravitonium."

Looking bored, Kat started looking around the room.

Quinn shook his head. "Raina got disenchanted with me when she realized that we wanted different things. I am concerned about the financial aspect while, as you know, she is interested in…I think she called it evolution." He chuckled a bit. "Ward, do you remember how crazy Garrett got after taking the serum she developed?"

Kat looked at Grant out of the corner of her eye. This was getting into dangerous territory. However, his expression was neutral and Quinn was not watching him closely.

"While you and I were disgusted by what he turned into, Raina was fascinated. She kept talking about how much more _connected_ he was with everything now. She really believed that he would do great things. But once she heard about his death and when I…um…insisted on keeping the gravitonium, she left."

Grant rolled his eyes and shifted just slightly on the couch. "She was a crazy one, alright. But smart too. It might be wise to keep tabs on her. Do you know what she's doing now?"

"No. I haven't heard a word and what's more, I don't really want to," Quinn said.

There was a silence and then Kat turned her attention back to Quinn, "I imagine that the demonstration is going to take a while and then we'll have to talk to our buyers and negotiate a price and plan for the transfer of goods. Do we have an idea of how long all this is going to take? Ward and I have a lot on our plate, so we need to arrange our schedule accordingly."

"I have, of course, made arrangements for the two of you to spend at least tonight here at the compound as my guests. Beyond that, it will depend on how things are going," Quinn said.

"I assume that Kat and I are sharing a room," Grant said firmly with a loving look in her direction. "We don't like to be apart for too long."

"Of course," Quinn said smoothly while Blake frowned again.

Kat looked up and noticed his sour expression. "Surely you didn't think that _we_ would be sharing a room after all of this time," Kat said, gesturing to Blake and herself.

"I was hoping that we would get a chance to talk. Now that we're both with Hydra, we have a lot to discuss," Blake said earnestly.

"Do we?" Kat asked in a mocking tone. She got up and started walking slowly towards him. "Did you think we were going to get back together?"

"I hoped that we could at least figure out…something," he finished lamely as she reached him and started running her hands up his arms.

"I don't know, maybe we can" Kat said softly. "What do you think, Ward?"

Looking angry, Grant stood up and moved threateningly toward the couple.

Kat took Blake's face in her hands and kissed him soundly for several seconds. When she finished, he looked astonished for a moment and then crumpled to the ground with several blue vine-like lines traveling up his face. Kat looked down at him. "Consider that a request for a divorce," she said in a hard voice.

Quinn looked surprised and then glanced around quickly as Grant turned suddenly in his direction and plunged a miniscule dart into his neck. He too crumpled to the ground with the familiar blue vine-like lines surrounding his neck.

Kat touched the tiny coms unit in her ear, "We're in and we have two packages ready for delivery."


	26. The Plan Comes Together

Chapter 26: The Plan Comes Together

_Several days earlier…_

The team was once again meeting in the lounge. Developing a workable plan that covered both of their missions was turning out to be quite difficult. There had been many unproductive and frustrating team meetings and tension was running high.

"OK. I know everyone is tired but Kat and Grant think they may have created a plan for capturing Quinn and Cordis. I wanted you all to hear it so you can see if there are any holes and we can figure out what they're going to need," Phil said.

"Kat and I will go into the compound as Hydra agents," Grant began.

"Whoa! Wait a minute. You're going to pretend to be Hydra….together?" Skye asked immediately. Kat suppressed a smile and wondered which part of the plan Skye objected to the most.

"Quinn and Cordis aren't going to talk to anyone they don't believe is Hydra," May explained. "It will be a lot easier to gain a foothold in the compound if we're invited in since, as you recall Skye, it's almost impossible to get in otherwise. Unfortunately, Quinn learned from our last visit and plugged some of the security holes."

"So Agent Ward is going to pretend that he's still Hydra?" Fitz asked in a worried voice. "Are we sure that's a good idea? He hasn't been involved with them for a while. What if they don't believe him?"

"That's a risk I'm going to have to take," Grant said firmly. "Look, I know this makes you all uncomfortable since you're not certain I can be trusted but it's the only way. If we want Quinn and Cordis, I have to do this. And that means you're going to have to take off the bracelet, sir," he said looking at Phil.

Phil looked unhappy but nodded.

There was silence around the circle. Finally, Skye spoke up. "So ok, Grant is going in as Hydra. Why do we think they'll buy Kat as a Hydra agent too?"

"Because SHIELD fired me and I'm the one who broke Grant out of jail. From their point of view, it seems obvious that I've switched teams. The FBI even has a Wanted poster of me. Besides, I know Blake's weaknesses better than anyone. I guarantee you that I can get under his skin in no time," Kat said.

"The plan is for Kat and Grant to get in and immobilize Quinn and Cordis. Once they do that, we can swoop in and get them on the Bus," Phil explained.

"How are they going to immobilize them?" Jemma asked.

"We'd like to use an ICER but there's no way we won't be searched before entering the compound. Fitz, is there any way you can make the ICER a lot smaller, something that can be kept hidden until we need it?" Grant asked.

"Maybe I've watched too many tv shows but I was wondering if there isn't some way I could wear the ICER material on me and then, instead of shooting them with it, just rub it on somehow," Kat said.

"Rub it on?" Trip asked shaking his head. "That sounds disturbing in a way I really don't care to imagine."

Kat just smiled and shrugged. "It happens in spy movies, so I thought I'd ask."

Fitz looked thoughtful. "I'll work on it."

"Kat, you said you know Blake's weaknesses. Which one are you going to use?" Trip asked.

Kat smiled slowly. "Jealousy."

The meeting broke up with everyone going off to prepare more plans, develop anti-serum or create miniature ICERs until only Phil and Kat remained.

Phil looked seriously at Kat. "Are you sure he's ready? It hasn't been that long."

"I understand your reservations, Phil, but yes, I'm certain. Grant wants to do the right thing. Oddly enough, he always has, it's just that for so long, he was confused about what that was. If I wasn't sure he could be trusted, I wouldn't be going into the field with him."

"OK then," Phil said briskly and headed towards his room.

Kat rounded the corner and said, "Feel better? You've got trust from Dad."

Grant shook his head. "Dare I even ask how you knew I was here?"

Kat grinned at him. "I didn't," she said as she was walking away.

"It was an educated guess," she and Grant finished together. Grant chuckled and headed off to help Trip plan the rest of the op.

_Present day…_

Grant knelt beside Quinn to see if he truly was unconscious while Kat did the same with Blake. Once he was sure, he looked over at her. "That went well," he said as he fitted the dart back into the tip of his shoelace. He smiled. "I thought Cordis was going to lose his mind if he saw me touch you one more time."

Kat smiled back at him. She peeled a thin layer of material off of her lips and threw it in the trash. "Yeah, that was fun. Blake always did need to be the alpha dog. Even if he didn't care for me, I knew that watching me pay attention to you and then mock him would cause him to get careless. The whole thing was almost too easy." Kat looked at her watch and then glanced at Grant and shook her head. She sank down beside Blake's body.

Grant leaned back against the couch and looked seriously at Kat. "I wish you would have told me that you were going to call me Ward. I almost broke character because I'm so used to you calling me Grant."

"I didn't realize it would bother you. We were on a mission, so I thought it would help keep you in character. I'm sorry if it threw you off. But Grant, if that was you bothered? No one could ever tell. Best espionage marks since Romanoff indeed!"

"Why do you call me Grant?"

Kat looked at him in surprise. "I thought you knew that."

Grant shook his head.

"Because Ward is the spy and Grant is the man."

Grant looked confused and shook his head again. "I think that's too fine a distinction for me."

Kat sighed, looked at her watch again and then back up at Grant. "Ward is the guy who works for SHIELD, the employee if you will. One might even call him the Robot." She gave him a wicked grin and he smiled slightly. Her expression turned serious and she said earnestly, "But Grant is so much more than his job. Grant is the man who is in love with Skye, loyal to his family of choice, a good friend, and someone who is trying to become a better person. Grant understands that Ward is just a part of him; he isn't all of him and he never was." She raised her eyebrows at him.

"Yeah, okay. I guess that makes sense. Except for Skye, I suppose we all have two identities, don't we Dr. Sevda?" he said looking mockingly at her.

"Yep. Skye is definitely the aberration. She's the only one of us who decided not to compartmentalize, to always be who she is no matter the situation." She smiled again. "That may be one reason why she fascinates you so much."

Kat looked at her watch once more and then jumped to her feet. She quickly walked to the door leading to the hallway, went out and returned a second later with a large laundry cart. She leaned deep into the cart and emerged with towels, sheets, handcuffs, leg irons, a uniform and tennis shoes. She threw Grant the manacles, and dropped the towels and sheets on the floor. She held onto the uniform and shoes.

"You cuff them while I change," she told him. He nodded as she went into an adjoining bathroom, emerging in a minute wearing the uniform of Ian's household staff.

"I'm kind of sorry to see the Kat suit go," Grant murmured as he loaded the two bodies into the cart.

Kat stuck her tongue out at him as she threw her black clothing and boots into the cart and put her hair up in a bun. She draped the towels and sheets artistically over Quinn and Blake and started wheeling the cart toward the door. She halted before opening it and turned back to Grant. "Please be careful."

Grant raised a mocking eyebrow, "I always am."

Kat looked like she wanted to say something else but then checked herself, opened the door and left with the cart.

Grant stayed in the room until he heard the sound of the Bus overhead. The plan called for Skye to come off the plane while Kat loaded Quinn and Blake onto it. Skye was going to hack into Quinn's system, figure out where the serum and the gravitonium were being kept, and bypass the security protocols.

Once he got the signal, Grant left the room and walked as quickly as he could in a casual manner toward where the gravitonium was being held. The voice in his ear gave him directions but, because he needed to keep his cover, Grant was supposed to maintain radio silence on his end. The longer he walked though, the more uneasy he became due to the absence of security guards. SHIELD didn't have enough people to take out all of the guards, so Grant was to keep his pose as a welcome guest, relying on the guards' belief in his status of someone who belonged. But there were no security guards in sight. What was going on?

Grant walked even faster, sure that something had gone wrong. He was almost running by the time he got to the gravitonium chamber where he was supposed to join Coulson, Trip and Fitz. He came to an abrupt halt when he came face-to-face with Raina and Kaminsky, Garrett's Hydra pal.


	27. Choices

Chapter 27: Choices

"Hello, Agent Ward," Raina said smoothly with a mocking smile on her face. "Imagine seeing you here."

"Can't say I expected to run into you either, Raina. Quinn said you left after disagreeing on what should be done with the gravitonium," Grant replied calmly.

"Oh, I did. My partnership with Quinn wasn't going the way I'd hoped, so I returned with reinforcements. This time I'm working with the _real_ Hydra, the one that is interested in evolution versus the one that is solely focused on money." Raina said _money_ like other people might say _cockroach_. She took a step closer and smiled up at him. "What about you, Agent Ward? Are you still the monster Garrett created? Or have you decided that you no longer like the person he made you to be?"

Grant smiled back at her rather viciously. "Why don't you wait and see?" he asked. Turning his head to face Kaminsky, he barked, "What's the situation?"

Kaminsky looked a bit startled. "We tried to get in touch with you once we heard you'd broken out of prison. We didn't know…" he trailed off as Grant gave him a hard look.

"I _asked_," Grant said firmly, "what is the situation? I'm here for the gravitonium. You can either work with me or I can get it the hard way. The choice is yours."

"Agent Ward," Raina said silkily. "Look at you no longer following. Leadership sits well on your shoulders."

Kaminsky nodded. "We got rid of all of the security guards. I have agents searching for Quinn and Cordis but so far, they're nowhere to be found. When we got to the gravitonium, we ran into SHIELD agents. I didn't even know there were any still around but we've got them secured. My orders are to stabilize the gravitonium and take it to Headquarters."

Grant nodded shortly. "After you," he said gesturing to the room.

Raina entered first, then Kaminsky, followed by Grant who took a quick look around the room. Coulson and Trip were sitting tethered to each other and were guarded by several Hydra operatives. Both looked rather the worse for wear with their blood-stained clothing and faces. There were several bodies lying on the ground near them, so they clearly had not been subdued easily. The two men looked up at Grant with blank expressions. Fitz was examining the control board while two Hydra agents watched him.

"Fitz, what are you doing?" Grant asked.

Fitz immediately looked up, his expression changing from relieved to confused. Raina answered for him. "Agent Fitz has been asked to try and control the gravitonium. So far he has resisted but he will soon change his mind. After all, Hydra is very skilled at providing…incentives."

In hearing the word _incentives_, Grant was transported back to when he and Garrett were at CyberTek. That damn incentives program; he'd hated it. He remembered Garrett's taunt to Skye about FitzSimmons being "brave to their last breath" and how he'd flinched when he thought about what he had done to the pair. He heard Skye's voice telling him he was weak and she hoped Garrett ordered him to walk into traffic. His mind seemed to get stuck remembering how he'd answered Skye, telling her how she'd woken a weakness in him. He knew what he'd said had sounded like a threat when, in reality, he was desperately trying to determine if she would be willing to be a monster with him. His stomach clenched.

Grant brought himself back to the present with an effort when he realized Fitz was talking. "Like I told you before, Dr. Hall's presence in the gravitonium is only stabilizing it temporarily. That was never supposed to be a permanent solution. It is getting increasingly unstable by the minute, so you need to let me figure out what to do about it or we're all going to get hurt or worse," he said to Raina.

"I agree that Dr. Hall was a short-term solution. In fact, he will be extracted right now. If we are going to use the gravitonium, we'll need his help," Raina said as she nodded to Kaminsky. He stepped toward the gravitonium and pulled on a large pair of gloves. Grant could see a hand waving around in the black material. He had no idea what was happening until Kaminsky grabbed the hand and started pulling it free of the gravitonium. Slowly, the shape of Dr. Hall started to appear.

"NO! You can't bloody do that without another stabilizing influence!" Fitz almost howled.

"You're right, we do need another stabilizer," she said looking slowly around the room. "I would use Agent Coulson but we still need what he has in his blood. Agent Fitz will be useful once he agrees to help us. Agent Ward, of course, is going to return to Hydra, so…that just leaves Agent Triplett. Untie him!" she said to the Hydra operatives guarding him.

Grant stepped forward, "No! You are not going to toss him into the gravitonium."

Kaminsky put his hand on Grant's arm and Grant immediately whirled to face him. "Garrett thought you might need some help in figuring out what to do. He told me to tell you not to let the weakness consume you because you can have what you've always wanted. We have your brother, Maynard, in custody and you are free to do with him what you will. All you need to do is help us get the gravitonium safely back to Hydra Headquarters."

Garrett. He seemed to be everywhere today. Grant had felt him earlier in the self-assurance of Quinn and the arrogance of Blake. He had seen Garrett's hand in the elimination (not the wounding) of Quinn's security guards. He was certain that the plan for Hydra's use of the gravitonium came from Garrett, probably something he and Raina cooked up between them. And now Garrett's words were being used to tempt him. _Incentives_ He could finally take care of Maynard, make him pay for the torture of their younger brother and the difficulty of Grant's whole life. All he had to do was let Trip be thrown into the gravitonium. Grant stepped back, away from Trip.

"No!" Fitz yelled. "Ward, fight this! You're free of Garrett! You don't have to do this!" He turned suddenly to Raina. "If you're going to throw anyone in there, it should be me."

Raina tilted her head and examined him. She looked sad but nodded, "You could have been useful but maybe you just want to evolve. Very well. Use him instead!"

Before the guards could grab him, Fitz swung around and faced Grant. "I know you care about us!"

Once again, Grant was taken back in time to when FitzSimmons were in the medpod begging him not to hurt them. It had been one of the worst moments of his life, realizing that no matter what he did, it would never be good enough. It had been a repeat of the decisions he made for his younger brother and Buddy. Now he was facing the same crisis all over again. He wondered briefly if his life was like _Groundhog Day_, a movie which Skye forced him to watch back on the Bus so long ago. Was he, like Bill Murray's character, fated to relive the same situation until he finally got it right?

Behind Fitz, Kaminsky finished pulling Dr. Hall out of the gravitonium and pulled off his gloves. The room started shaking. Grant realized that he didn't have much time before something needed to stabilize the new element but he still hadn't decided. Garrett or Coulson? Hydra or SHIELD?

Watching Fitz plead mutely for his life, Grant knew that this was, once again, a defining moment. ("There will come a time when you will have to fully commit…") Maybe life was full of them. This time, he wasn't choosing whether to survive but how he was going to live. He could choose Hydra and go back to a life of having the structure that he craved, the satisfaction of vengeance, and living as Ward full-time. Or he could choose SHIELD and work hard to atone for his sins, face the uncertainty of making decisions on his own, and possibly experience the love and loyalty that Grant could inspire in the people he loved. In short, Hydra would be easy while SHIELD would be hard.

However, Grant knew almost immediately that he wanted to choose SHIELD, that, in fact, he had already chosen them. He wanted to be with Skye and the rest of his family. But even more than that, he realized that he wanted to be Grant; he had worked too hard at accepting and appreciating Grant to go back to being only Ward. And though it would be hard, he also wanted the joy that came with the difficulty and complexity of experiencing love and friendship. Grant didn't ever want to go back to being the Robot, the man who rarely laughed or smiled and always ended up alone.

In that moment, Grant let Ward take over to do what he did best. Ward spun and ran toward the gravitonium. He yanked Dr. Hall away with one hand while grabbing Kaminsky's weapon with his other. He kicked Kaminsky into the gravitonium, then turned to take out the remaining Hydra agents with five successive shots. Ward left Raina alone since she had no weapon and therefore posed no immediate threat. His whole series of actions had taken less than a minute.

The room stopped shaking as the gravitonium absorbed Kaminsky. Once it completely stilled, the silence in the room seemed deafening. Finally, Fitz walked over to Ward. "I knew you cared about us! I knew you would make the right decision this time!" he crowed triumphantly as he hugged Grant. Without waiting for a response, he went to help Dr. Hall from where he had fallen and then untied Coulson and Trip, who were struggling to get up off the floor. Raina backed herself into the corner and stared helplessly at the gravitonium.

Once he was untied, Trip walked over to Grant and slapped him on the back. "Thanks, brother!" he said. Then he started checking on the downed Hydra agents to see how badly they were wounded.

Coulson also made his way over to Grant. "It's okay, Grant," he said gently. Grant slowly became aware that tears were coursing down his face. What was happening to him? He couldn't even remember the last time he had cried like this. Had it been back when he was a teenager, when he was in the woods and afraid of what was going to become of him? What must Coulson think of him? Did he believe that he was weak?

He focused on Coulson's face as Phil touched his arm. "Good job. I'm proud of you."


	28. The Loralei Liquid

Chapter 28: The Loralei Liquid

After Skye finished her hack, she went to join the rest of the team assigned to either capture or destroy the serum. After hearing Kat play around with the name, they all agreed to call it the Loralei Liquid. As she made her way across the compound, Skye also noticed the lack of security guards and her steps quickened. Something was wrong.

She felt the tremors from the gravitonium start and she remembered like it was yesterday jumping into the pool and being saved by Ward. She hoped he was okay. She was worried about him. The Loralei episode was not a good memory for him, both because he was essentially raped and because it reminded him of how much he lost by following orders. Skye was glad that Grant had been assigned to Quinn and the gravitonium parts of the mission. She wanted him to stay far away from the Loralei Liquid.

The tremors finally stopped just as Skye turned left, opened two huge doors just enough for her to slowly enter a large room set up like a lab. She saw scientific apparatus set up on the right side of the cavernous space. Skye counted five people in white lab coats working with the beakers, computers and other equipment. Along the left side were twenty men who looked like they were asleep on raised beds. She hoped that the Hydra scientists hadn't yet gotten around to injecting the men with the Liquid. If they had, this was going to be a lot harder than they expected.

Skye quickly backed out of the room, hoping that no one had seen her. She had to wait for the others. Turning her head to the right, Skye saw a sight that had her smiling with appreciation. Walking across the compound side by side were three women, all in black cat suits: May, Kat and, of all people, Akela Amador (from the "I-Spy Mission" as they used to call it on the Bus).

AC's attempt to get more SHIELD agents hadn't yielded many people. Most of the ones who agreed to come were still on the Bus, watching the prisoners, preparing space for the gravitonium and the Liquid and making sure the plane was ready to leave at a moment's notice. However, Akela was the only one who volunteered to do whatever AC needed her to do. SHIELD scientists had given her another robotic eye but this one, thankfully, was not controlled by anyone else and would not end her life if she failed to obey. In other words, her new eye wasn't creepy.

The three black-clad women strode purposefully towards Skye who shook her head in admiration. Given how attractive and fit they all were, they reminded Skye of more serious and far more deadly Charlie's Angels. If there had only been a wind blowing back their hair, they would have looked like they were in a movie. And then she saw Jemma scampering along behind them. Skye shook her head in amusement this time. Jemma was not dressed in black and had a backpack she was carrying. She looked like a college student trying to keep up with her older, cooler friends.

Skye gestured for them to hurry and then kept watch on the surrounding buildings. While she was grateful for the missing security guards, their absence continued to be ominous. The four women arrived and May said, "Report, Agent Skye."

"There are five Hydra people in there on the right side of the room. I think they're scientists but it's hard to tell. There are also twenty soldiers on the left side who all look like they're asleep. I hope they haven't been dosed with the Loralei Liquid but I don't know."

"Let's hope they remain asleep," Kat said in a tone of foreboding.

The group nodded and May said, "Ready?" She stealthily opened the double doors and the group slunk into the room with Jemma bringing up the rear. Unfortunately, their entry must have set off an alarm because almost immediately there was increased activity among the Hydra people, almost like bees buzzing around after their hive has been attacked. All of the SHIELD women except Jemma started running toward the people in the lab coats.

One of the Hydra agents ran to a microphone connected to one of the computers. "Soldiers, awake and terminate the enemy!" she said firmly. Her voice was amplified by the microphone but also sounded like it had an extra echo to it.

Skye looked over at the men in dread. Sure enough, all of them were sitting up, getting off of their beds and making their way to the SHIELD group. May, Akela and Kat had been fighting the scientists. Most of them were down but several of them had darted out of reach when the Loralei soldiers distracted the fighting SHIELD agents. The initial plan had called for the three SHIELD Angels to take out the Hydra agents while Skye and Simmons worked on capturing information and the serum. Unfortunately, there was no time for that.

"Switch!" May called out.

Skye immediately stopped looking at computers and turned her focus to the remaining Hydra agents. "If the ones still fighting are scientists, then they had some damn good training," she thought. More likely though, they were Hydra operatives ordered to protect the real scientists, most of whom were already on the floor.

At May's command, both she and Akela started fighting the Loralei soldiers. If there hadn't been so many of them, they probably would have succeeded but Skye could tell that they were quickly going to be overwhelmed. Kat was busy with the remaining Hydra operatives while Jemma desperately searched through computers and scientific notes. Skye touched her coms, "AC! We're going to need help down here and fast!" Then she ran to help Kat.

In the gravitonium chamber, Fitz and Trip were preparing the element for transport while Phil handcuffed Raina and was starting to lead her to the rendezvous point. He halted when he heard Skye's voice in his ear.

"Ward!" he said in a desperate tone. He threw him two ICERs. "The rest of the team needs help. Unfortunately, the gravitonium's instability makes transporting it a two-person job and I need to take Raina and the other Hydra captives back to the Bus. I'm sorry but you're the only person available to help."

"Yes sir!" Ward said as he raced toward the lab.


	29. Resurrection

**Just one more chapter to go!**

Chapter 29: Resurrection

Once he reached his destination, Ward could see that the fight was going badly. Kat was lying on the floor but had just fired an ICER and taken out one of the Loralei soldiers. She looked to be out of ammunition as another soldier moved towards her. Skye was trying to keep a soldier from getting to Jemma who was unpacking something from her backpack.

May and Akela were battling another eight soldiers and Ward was impressed by their prowess. The two looked like whirling dervishes in action but they were no match for the groups of controlled men converging on them. The other Loralei soldier was protecting a Hydra agent in a white lab coat. Ward figured that this was the lead scientist and ran to engage her.

As he ran past the two SHIELD operatives, he used his ICER to take out two soldiers, one from each group moving toward May and Akela. "That should help narrow the odds," he thought. He used his two remaining bullets from one ICER to take out the soldier moving toward Kat and the one fighting with Skye. He then started fighting the soldier guarding the scientist.

The first thing the Loralei soldier did was kick away Ward's remaining ICER. "Smart," he thought grudgingly. However, Ward soon gained the upper hand (the soldiers may have been controlled but that didn't make them great fighters). The soldier had just hit the floor when Ward felt the sting of a hypodermic needle in his arm and a burning sensation shoot up his shoulder, neck and head. He whipped his head around to stare at the scientist. "What did you do to me?"

"I injected you with the serum, of course," she said in a flat tone. "The effects should be almost instantaneous." She scientist paused, watching him closely for a few seconds. Ward felt a moment of panic as he remembered what had happened the last time he had been controlled. However, the panic was quickly overtaken by the familiar feeling of calm purpose. The scientist saw his expression change, smiled slightly and said firmly, "You will eliminate the SHIELD scientist over there."

Once again, Ward felt the knowledge that this was wrong while his body moved to obey. His stomach clenched painfully but he started walking towards Jemma. He started arguing with himself. "I can't do this again!" was followed quickly by "What does it matter? You'll always be weak." He kept walking but slowly, his emotions in turmoil.

May and Akela were still fighting soldiers although they looked like they were winning. They didn't notice Ward's transition. Kat was clearly injured but yelled out, "Grant, don't! Fight it!" Skye looked up from the computer she was accessing and ran to get in front of Ward. Jemma paid him no attention but kept working feverishly on something.

"Grant!" Skye said desperately as Ward tried to walk around her. "Look at me! This isn't you; this is the Loralei Liquid. You can fight it! I know you can because you've done it before."

"I don't want to hurt you," Ward said as he pushed her gently aside. "You're not my mission."

"Eliminate anyone who gets in your way!" the Hydra scientist yelled.

Skye refused to move. "Grant! I trust you! I know you can fight this!" she yelled.

"Kill her!" howled the Hydra scientist.

Skye heard the bang of an ICER at the same time she felt herself being shoved aside. She fell to the floor and skidded under a table. She quickly got out from underneath it to see that Kat had managed to crawl over to Ward's other ICER and shoot the Hydra scientist. Skye had just enough time to think, "Good!" when she turned her head to see Ward lifting Jemma up by her shoulders.

Skye had just scrambled to her feet when she heard Jemma scream, "Skye, stay down!" and she realized that it hadn't been Ward who had shoved her; it had been Jemma.

"Don't do this, Agent Ward! You know that you don't want to do this!" Jemma said to Ward. "Please don't hurt me again!"

Ward was sweating profusely and looked like he was about to be sick. "I don't want to do this, Jemma, but I can't stop myself. Help me! Use the anti-serum."

"But it hasn't been tested properly. I have no idea what it will do to you! It could kill you!"

"I don't care! Use it! I can't keep myself from hurting you much longer!" he said through gritted teeth. "Just do it. Please."

Hearing Ward's desperate _Please_, Jemma's face took on a determined expression and she plunged the hypodermic needle she had in her hand into his arm.

Ward dropped Jemma and staggered backwards. He turned to face Skye and took one step towards her before falling on the ground and lying on his side. He looked into her eyes and whispered, "Skye" before he started convulsing.

Skye started crying as she remembered when almost the same thing had happened. Back then, Ward's resurrection had been within her control but this time there was nothing she could do. Skye put her hand on Ward's shoulder. Jemma rushed to her side and grabbed her other hand. "It will be all right, Skye. Agent Ward is strong!"

Kat pulled herself over to stare helplessly at Ward's shuddering body, her expression filled with pain, terror and sorrow. Suddenly May and Akela were there too, all five women just looking at Ward, hoping against hope that he would be okay.

Ward stopped convulsing and was still.

Skye stopped crying and leaned her forehead on his shoulder. "Come back to me," she whispered.

Phil, Trip and Fitz ran in, skidding to an abrupt halt when they reached Ward and the circle of women.

The silence was deafening. The room was eerily still. No one said a word.

The quiet was so intense that Grant's huge gulp of air sounded like the whistle of a freight train cutting through the tranquility of midnight. He coughed a few times and sat up looking around at the worried faces of the people he loved. "Is everyone all right?" he asked looking confused.

Skye touched his face gently. "Are you?"

Grant looked thoughtful for a moment and then smiled slowly. "Yeah, I think I am."


	30. The Return of SHIELD

**Well, this is finally complete. My sincerest thanks to everyone who was willing to give this story a chance and most especially to those who took the time to comment.**

Chapter 30: The Return of SHIELD

The clean-up had been easy. The Loralei soldiers were given the anti-serum and the rest of the Hydra agents in the compound had been rounded up. Additional SHIELD reinforcements arrived to take care of the details, allowing the Bus to head to the Hub. Somehow Maria Hill had managed to get that facility transferred back into SHIELD hands.

The whole team assembled in FitzSimmons' lab to make sure they were all going to be fine. Phil watched while Kat, May, Trip and Akela were being treated by Jemma, then turned to Grant who was holding Skye's hand. Or perhaps it was the other way around, Phil mused. Skye sure looked possessive.

"Agent Ward, can I speak with you in my office?" he asked.

Grant noted the use of the official title but merely nodded. He squeezed Skye's hand before turning to follow Coulson to his sanctuary.

"Sir?" Grant said once they were both sitting. His face was expressionless.

Phil held up the tracking bracelet he had removed prior to the beginning of the Malta operation. He felt rather than saw Grant tense, so he smiled. "I don't think we'll be needing this any longer. You made some tough decisions back there. You could have been free of all our restrictions and anger and taken over the leadership of Hydra but you chose to stay and fight with us."

Grant nodded.

"Why?" Phil thought he already knew why but wanted to hear Grant say it.

"Because you're my team and my loyalty is to you. Sir, after Garrett was killed, you asked me to find out who I was without him. It's taken me a long time but I did. What I discovered is that, for better or worse, who I am is a member of this family." An expression of anxiety passed over his face as he realized that "Dad" could make him leave, that just because Grant felt like a part of them didn't mean that he was welcome.

Phil smiled and nodded, putting away the bracelet. "Yes, you are. I finally get that."

"Sir?"

"Did you ever wonder why I agreed to let you back on the Bus?"

"I thought it was because you needed my skills."

"That was part of it. But the main reason was that your absence hurt us. I was so angry at you that I couldn't see it but Kat made me realize that we were never going to be whole until we all faced what happened. Every one of us made mistakes and we needed to deal with them before we could move forward. You are a part of this family, Grant, and we need you."

Grant was overwhelmed. He tried to say something but couldn't get words around the lump in his throat. He looked down, trying to regain control of his emotions.

"We completed an impossible mission largely because of you. Your willingness to sacrifice yourself was noted but hopefully that will not be a recurring theme."

Grant nodded, finally finding his voice. He looked directly into Phil's eyes as he said, "I am willing to give my life for any of you. I hope you know that, Sir. But I also hope that it won't be necessary because, for the first time, I want things for myself too."

"I would expect nothing less," Phil laughed. He paused and then turned serious again, "The question of how long you will remain on the Bus was never settled."

Grant looked stricken. He didn't move a muscle as the fear washed over him. Was he going to be returned to prison? Kicked off the Bus and left to fend for himself? What would he do?

"As far as I'm concerned, you can stay provided you are willing to return to active SHIELD status. You've been given amnesty for your crimes and SHIELD, such as it is, is willing to welcome you back. However, I thought it would be fair to ask you what you would like to do. You do have a choice."

Once again, Grant was overwhelmed and said nothing.

"You don't have to decide now. Take your time and think about it." He stood up, indicating that the meeting was over.

Grant quickly stood up and hesitantly leaned over to shake Phil's hand. "I appreciate your confidence in me, Sir. I'll give you an answer soon."

Grant left Phil's office and wandered aimlessly around the Bus for a while. He knew that the team was having dinner together but he didn't feel like talking to them yet. He needed to figure out some things first. His steps took him toward the medical bay where he knew Kat was staying for the night. Her injuries had been worse than the others.

Kat was sitting up in bed, just staring at the ceiling. Grant knocked on the doorframe and then poked his head in, "Feel up to some company?"

Kat looked at him and smiled, beckoning him forward. "Come on in! You're saving me from boredom." She examined him closely. "What's up?"

Grant told her about the parts of the mission she had missed and about his conversation with Phil. Then he stopped talking and looked at her. "That's a lot to throw at a person in one day," she said.

He nodded. "What should I do?"

Kat shook her head. "I can't tell you what to do anymore, Grant. No one can. That's the challenge and the beauty of it. You get to decide for yourself."

"What if I make the wrong decision?"

"Then I'd say: welcome to the human race. We all make mistakes. You more than anyone should know that."

"I do. It's just scary to think that I could make another colossal mess again."

"You could. But for what it's worth, I doubt you will. Your big mistake was letting others do your thinking for you."

He nodded and looked down, thinking it over.

Kat continued, "Grant, this may not be my place to say, but I am incredibly proud of you." He jerked his head up to look directly at her. Hearing those words would never get old. "When we first met, you were an emotional wreck. You had no idea of what your future would hold or even if you should wish for one. But you turned that all around and now your future is incredibly bright, filled with whatever you want for it." She paused, and then finished softly, "Congratulations."

The two of them talked a bit longer, then Grant went in search of dinner. He found FitzSimmons finishing up the dishes by themselves. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. "Did you all draw the short straw?"

"No," Fitz replied. "Everyone else was hurt in some way, so it seemed only fair. Well, Skye wasn't hurt but we took pity on her anyway."

Grant nodded. "I'm thinking about staying on the Bus and returning to active field status for SHIELD."

FitzSimmons both whirled to face him.

"But before I do, I wanted to check with the two of you to see what you thought about that."

Fitz immediately banged him on the back (Grant frowned), a wide smile on his face. "That's great, mate! We've missed you!"

"What about you, Jemma?" Grant asked. He was anxious to hear her response but tried to keep it from showing.

Jemma smiled as her eyes filled with tears. "I think I would like that, Grant, just as long as you stop trying to kill us."

Grant laughed a bit. "I'll try. But you two have to stop putting yourselves into danger."

"We don't do that! Well, at least I don't. Danger is really not my area," Fitz protested.

"Right. Well, I'm just going to make myself a sandwich before turning in for the night."

Wordlessly, Jemma handed him one already made. "It's Jemma's specialty," Fitz said in response to Grant's raised eyebrows. "Prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella with a bit of homemade pesto aioli. Try not to get it on the ground," he said as both of them walked out of the kitchen.

After Grant finished the sandwich (he finally understood Fitz's obsession with it), he went back to his bunk. Skye was lying on his bed, her laptop open but she closed it and set it on the floor when he entered.

"Finally!" she said. "I thought you were going to spend all night roaming around the plane."

He sat down next to her, leaned his back against the wall and smiled slightly. "I'm sorry. Was I supposed to know that you were here waiting for me?"

"Well, no but you could have guessed," she said with a bit of exasperation. Skye settled into a cross-legged position directly facing Grant. "What did AC have to say?"

"He told me that I could come back to SHIELD and remain on the Bus if I wanted but that the choice is up to me. I guess I'm forgiven," Grant tried to sound casual but his voice broke a little on the word _forgiven_.

"Yeah, I worked that out when he called you Agent Ward." She paused. "What are you going to do?" She too tried to keep her voice steady but wasn't completely successful.

"I'm not sure yet."

"What do you need to figure out?" Skye tried to keep her vulnerability from showing but Grant noticed.

He took a deep breath. It was time to start that whole _get what I want thing_, only this time in a healthy way. "I need to know what's going on with us." He ignored her look of surprise and continued on, "I want to be with you, Skye, but if you don't want that too, then I don't know if I can stay. It would be too difficult to be around you and not be together."

When she didn't say anything, he said, "Not that I would blame you, of cour…." Skye leaned forward and started kissing him passionately. Grant responded eagerly, then drew back to catch his breath.

"I take it that means you want to be together?" he asked with a smile on his face.

"Yes, Turbo," she said smiling back at him, her eyes full of tears. "I've wanted that more than anything ever since you came back on the Bus." She kissed him tenderly. "Does this mean you'll be staying?"

"Wild horses couldn't drag me away," he said as he gently lowered her onto the bed.

_Five days later…_

The cargo door was lowered and the cooler full of beer was ready. There was a blanket spread out across the floor, just waiting for the team to sit down to watch the takeoff. They had all been given three days off to go do civilian stuff but everyone was planning to meet back right before the designated hour.

The team had spent two days at the Hub offloading material and taking on supplies. They also had to endure the usual debrief and paperwork that everyone so enjoyed after a mission. Grant had to undergo additional debriefing and paperwork in order to rejoin SHIELD. Kat, Trip and Akela had said goodbye to the team there.

Kat was heading the newly refurbished PsyOps division but made promises to stay in close touch with the team. She mentioned her excitement about finally managing a meeting with Maria Hill. Both Trip and Akela had been given their own teams to manage. They were in the process of getting to know their new teams and preparing for the missions the improved SHIELD would be doing. The team was sorry to see them all go but everyone knew that new beginnings also meant endings.

About fifteen minutes before Zero Hour, the team started arriving. Phil pulled up in Lola with May. FitzSimmons were dropped off by a town car. Skye and Grant arrived in her van which she left on the tarmac after once again issuing dire warnings to the ground personnel in charge of it. No one was wearing black. Phil wasn't even wearing a suit. They all settled down on the blanket with Jemma passing around the beer.

Grant leaned against the wall with Skye nestled firmly between his legs, resting her back against his chest. The two had decided to be honest with the others about their relationship from the start. There had been enough lies. Phil agreed that they could continue their relationship as long as it didn't negatively impact team effectiveness.

"Umm…maybe this is a bad question but how do we know that the Slingshot Program is definitely going to happen this time?" Fitz asked nervously as the rocket started its lift-off countdown.

"Because SHIELD is turning over a new leaf," Phil replied. "Some things like the gravitonium are just too dangerous to keep no matter how useful they could be in the right circumstances."

"Not to mention that we don't have the personnel to keep doing the same missions over and over again," Skye said wryly. "If I never see gravitonium again, it will be too soon!"

Everyone got quiet as the rocket lifted off. Then May lifted her beer and said, "To new beginnings!"

"To new beginnings!" everyone chorused. Grant and Skye smiled at each other. The team watched the rocket until it could no longer be seen.

Phil got to his feet. "Well, I hope you all got enough rest because we have a new mission. Meet me in the lounge in 15 minutes!"

**THE END**


End file.
